By Andrew Holtan
The Brookings Beacon
BROOKINGS – It took one quarter to get going, but South Dakota State blew out another opponent at home on Saturday night as the Jackrabbits beat New Haven 57-14 at Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium.
The Jacks led 3-0 at the end of the first quarter and proceeded to outscore the Chargers 47-0 in the next two quarters. SDSU offensive tackle Quinten Christensen said the Jacks need to be better out of the gates, but once they got going he thought things looked good.
“I think starting off, there needs to be more intentionality. Like, we made a few mistakes that are not acceptable. Obviously, we had to take a breath and talk about them, but once we kind of got in the flow of things, things got rolling a little bit. … We need to be better. Bottom line. But I think once we got in the flow of things, cleaned some stuff up, we had some success,” Christensen said.
SDSU chewed up a lot of clock on its first two drives. The Jacks got the ball first and went on a 15-play drive but it only resulted in three points as they failed to convert on a third and eight from the New Haven 13. Tristan Alvano came on and hit a 31-yard field goal to make it 3-0 with 8:42 left in the first quarter.
New Haven turned the ball over on downs at the Jackrabbit 34 on its first drive. SDSU then went on a 14-play drive and this time Chase Mason scored on a one-yard quarterback sneak on fourth and goal to make it 10-0 with 13:30 left in the first half.
The Jacks extended the lead to 17-0 with just over six minutes left in the half as Ramon McKinney Jr. scored on a 22-yard touchdown run.
On the ensuing kickoff Ryan Harrington’s kick checked up at the one yard line and a swarm of Jackrabbit defenders tackled New Haven’s Logan Schmidt at the four yard line. That set up a safety as Zaon Laney was met just behind the goal line by Carter Sitzman and he drove him towards the back of the end zone to make it 19-0 with 4:16 left in the first half.
Sitzman said the defense talks about scoring all the time and they finally got it done this week.
“Before we went on the field, [offensive line coach Mike Bengston] talked to us and told us to get the ball back [to the offense] and [they’ll] go score again. But we scored on defense and then the offense scored again. We played pretty good on defense today. To score on defense is always big. It’s one of our goals each game and we finally hit it this week,” Sitzman said.
After the safety punt, SDSU went 50 yards in five plays but the Jacks drive stalled at the New Haven 19 yard line. Alvano came on for a 36-yard field goal and knocked it through to make it 22-0.
The SDSU defense created its first turnover of the game with just under two minutes left in the half as Dontay Johnson punched the ball free from Laney and Michael Farr scooped it up. Farr would have scored on the play but the officials initially called Laney down before reviewing the play.
It didn’t take long for the Jacks to find the end zone though as Chase Mason found a wide open Coleman Kuntz for a 25-yard score on the next play.
SDSU then forced a three and out and scored one more time before the end of the half. Mason found another tight end for a touchdown as Greyton Gannon caught a 24-yard pass to make it 36-0 at halftime.
The Jacks then scored two touchdowns in the first two and a half minutes of the second half. Mason found Gannon for a 29-yard touchdown. Then Max Stanard punched the ball out of Jonathan Lawson’s hands and Blake Leiferman recovered it. The next play James Basinger ran 27 yards to the end zone to make it 50-0.
SDSU head coach Dan Jackson said his team talked about generating more turnovers before the game.
“We need to create more takeaways in general. You can play really good defense and sound defense for long stretches, but you really need takeaways. … We’ve been working on it a lot. I wouldn’t say this week was any different, but I think the game is slowing down for a few kids that are getting some reps, and it translates to takeaways,” Jackson said.
That score remained until Basinger scored again early in the fourth quarter. This time it was from 55 yards out and the Jacks led 57-0 with 13:26 to play.
New Haven finally got on the board with 10:32 to go as Jake Tripptree found LaSelle Rose Jr. for a 19-yard touchdown. The score came after a muffed punt from Alex Uchtman.
The Chargers scored again five minutes later as Jason Champagne ran 49 yards to the end zone. That made the final 57-14.
SDSU had 512 yards of offense. The Jacks ran for 256 yards. Basinger led the way with 88 yards on six carries. McKinney had 51 yards on five carries and Johnson had 48 yards on 11 carries. Blair had 42 yards on 10 carries.
Mason was 12-of-18 with 255 yards. Grahm Goering had four catches for 77 yards. Gannon had three grabs for 65 yards.
Gannon talked about how nice it was to have three touchdown catches from tight ends, with him catching two and Kuntz having the other.
“We just had a good game plan for the tight ends this week. Every week there’s opportunities for different guys and this week, the tight ends took full advantage of it. Moving forward, I mean I hope I get a touchdown every game, but it was nice to see the tight ends involved today, and hopefully we are going forward as well,” Gannon said.
The SDSU defense held New Haven to 236 yards but the Chargers only had 104 yards entering the fourth quarter.
The Jackrabbits will begin Missouri Valley Football Conference play next weekend as No. 10 ranked Youngstown State comes to Brookings. Kickoff between the Jacks and Penguins is scheduled for 6 p.m. next Saturday.
