Above photo: Asa Osbourn crosses the goal line early in the first quarter of UMHB’s win over Westgate Christian on Saturday night (Photo by Luke Zayas/True To The Cru/LukeZayasPhotography)
BELTON—With the nation’s third-ranked team awaiting UMHB a week from Saturday in Whitewater, Wisconsin, The Cru entered its home opener on Saturday night eager to regroup and get in the win column—even if it didn’t count for anything official.
Facing Westgate Christian University, an independent institution out of Houston, the Crusaders did just that. It was one-sided from start to finish, eventually ending with the second half reduced to eight-minute quarters and an 85-6 win for UMHB.
“Coming off a loss last week, we needed to come out here and find our groove again,” defensive end Te’Ron Brown, who finished with 2.5 tackles for loss and anchored the defensive line, said postgame. “We needed to get the confidence in ourselves, our offense, our special teams, and our defense. And I feel like tonight, we did that.”
It took little time for UMHB to establish its dominance, and the stats reflected that. By halftime, The Cru held a 71-6 lead, accumulated 457 yards of total offense on just 30 plays, and recorded touchdowns in all three phases of the game; offense, defense, and special teams. Crusader running back Kamerin Ferguson rushed for two touchdowns and 185 yards on a mere six carries. Quarterback Isaac Phe didn’t even complete the first quarter due to UMHB’s already immense lead, and finished with 130 yards through the air on seven completed passes.
The Cru held possession for just 11:35 of the first half, yet scored 10 touchdowns in that span. Eight of those came from the offense, with Ronald Tatum returning a fumble by Westgate quarterback Dominic Martin for a defensive touchdown, and Dakarion Judge racing 78 yards after picking up a blocked field goal with 5:52 left in the second quarter.
“We’re going to build on the things we did really well,” UMHB head coach Larry Harmon noted postgame. “Obviously we will coach up the stuff that we didn’t do very well with the younger guys. But for the most part, we’re just going to talk about, when you prepare right and you play hard and you execute, good things are going to happen.”
The second half was more of the same, even with the game time nearly cut in half due to the scoring margin. UMHB found the end zone on each of its two second half possessions, while simultaneously pitching a shutout. And that was with The Cru’s third and fourth-string players playing the majority of the snaps.
“What we were trying to do was get a bunch of people to try to get some depth,” Harmon told reporters postgame. “And not get anybody hurt. Seeing younger kids that haven’t gotten to play as much get in there and see their technique and how they respond with fast bullets flying at them, that’s what we got out of it.”
There was plenty of that seen, as UMHB accumulated 562 yards of offense and held Westgate to just 108 yards of their own. Junior Daunte Blake, who spent his first two years with UMHB’s JV, carried the ball four times for 50 yards, highlighted by a 27-yard touchdown run on a fourth-down play late in the first quarter. Sophomore defensive back Zha’Mauryon Lofton, seeing action for the varsity for the first time this year, made a leaping interception on a deep pass from Westgate with 4:52 in the second quarter, setting up Kamerin Ferguson’s 87-yard rushing touchdown. Dominik Izydorczyk, in his first varsity game as a Crusader, made three solo tackles, including a sack.
There was little WCU could do about all of it. UMHB, playing in front of a crowd of 4,942 on family weekend, had the momentum on its side, finding its rhythm rather quickly. The Cru’s longest first half possession was its first, spanning six plays, capped by Asa Osbourn’s 25-yard touchdown reception. Every possession in the first two quarters that followed, with the exception of one, resulted in a touchdown, all of which saw UMHB run just five plays or fewer before reaching the end zone. And defensively, The Cru was equally as consistent, intercepting Westgate three times, recovering two fumbles, holding the Ravens to a third down conversion rate of 15% (2-of-13), and -35 rushing yards.
The only bright spot for Westgate’s offense came with 9:58 in the opening quarter, when Martin heaved a deep pass downfield to Troy’Troy Tisdale after being flushed out of the pocket. In a one-on-one matchup, Tisdale made a difficult over-the-shoulder catch, scoring on an 86-yard reception—WCU’s first touchdown of its inaugural season.
Outside of that, the Ravens’ passing game went nowhere, largely due to the constant pressure of UMHB’s defensive front combined with the performance of the Crusader secondary. Nearly every time Westgate’s quarterback dropped back—whether it be Martin, Wyndell Mitchell, or Vincent Ward—he was under duress, as UMHB’s defensive line cut through the Westgate offensive line. The relentless pressure in the backfield yielded four sacks by the Crusaders, including the sack by Te’Ron Brown with 7:48 in the first quarter that resulted in Tatum’s fumble recovery and 10-yard touchdown return.
And even when the ball found its way into the air, UMHB’s secondary made plays on the ball. Westgate was just 8-of-19 passing in the first half, and 9-of-21 for the game. The Crusaders tallied three interceptions in the first half, leading to increased momentum as the defense seemed to set up the offense for success time after time. After WCU scored on its first possession, three of the Ravens’ next four drives ended in turnovers. The exception? A safety that saw Dillan Botts and Durand Hill corral Martin, the WCU quarterback, on a 3rd & 16 play as he scrambled further and further backwards, eventually being tackled by Hill in the end zone. There was still 6:21 left in the first quarter when that occurred, and The Cru already led 29-6.
Blake’s 27-yard touchdown run followed the safety exactly two minutes later. Then Ferguson ran for his first touchdown of the evening, a 72-yard sprint down the right sideline 47 seconds into the second quarter. Ferguson, a transfer from Southwest Baptist, was responsible for UMHB’s two longest offensive plays of the night, with his 87-yard touchdown run at the 3:40 mark of the second quarter pushing The Cru past the 60-point mark for a 64-6 lead.
As a whole, the rushing attack ran with plenty of purpose, tallying 357 yards as four different running backs recorded touchdowns. That included Osbourn, who scored on a reception from Phe on UMHB’s first drive, then found the end zone again on a 19-yard run just two plays later, after WCU fumbled away the ensuing kickoff. Joining Osbourn with two scores on the night was Cameron Bibins, who led The Cru in carries with 10, and had 76 yards.
It was an unideal matchup in many ways. Playing a noncountable opponent was never UMHB’s first choice. And the Crusaders weren’t looking for an easy win. But the situation was essentially forced by the state of the American Southwest Conference being composed of just four teams, leading to a shorter conference schedule and more non-conference dates that had to be filled. Even still, that didn’t keep the fans at home, and it provided UMHB a chance to gain confidence in front of its home crowd, re-energizing between two challenging weeks on the road.
“It’s always great to be back home,” Harmon noted. “It’s family weekend. There was no place to park at two o’clock for pregame meal. That was awesome to see. It’d been a long time since I saw our campus that packed with all kinds of events going on. It was a great crowd [tonight] and they were into it and our kids performed really well. After the long trip we had last week, it was good to just not have to travel. And then we have to go to Wisconsin this week. So another long trip.”
The WIAC is one of Division III’s premier conferences, made up entirely of Wisconsin programs. And UMHB will get another chance to experience the atmosphere found across the conference when The Cru heads north next weekend. Two years ago, when the two programs battled at Whitewater’s Perkins Stadium, 14,213 fans showed up. There is good reason to believe a similarly large crowd will be in attendance this time around, especially with the Warhawks holding a 2-0 record thus far.
“You don’t go to Wisconsin-Whitewater and play at their place and come out with the win if you’re not confident in what you’re doing,” Harmon said. “So we need to do a great job this week of really letting our kids know exactly what we want, and go up there and be ready to be physical.”
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