McNeese falls short on the road and loses to Southeastern

HAMMOND, La. (KPLC) - The McNeese Cowboys put a solid run together in the second half to make things close against Southeastern, but the Lions just made the most important plays in the end as they took down the Cowboys 38-24.

“To play for four quarters, you have to have the belief that we’re in this no matter what the score is, and instead, as a young team we like to watch the clock a little bit more than we should and I thought we battled all the way to the end we just didn’t make the critical plays down the stretch,” Coach Gary Goff said. “I challenged the guys to come out here and play as hard as they could for four quarters and right now, I feel like they did that.”

In the first quarter, Southeastern struck first on a touchdown pass from Zachary Clement to Darius Lewis from 17 yards out to cap off a 10-play 63-yard drive.

McNeese though would respond quickly as Ryan Roberts completed a pass to Johnathan Harris on the Cowboys first drive that went 54 yards straight to the house to even up the score 7-7.

Southeastern would then strike back with two rushing touchdowns coming from the legs of Rodeo Graham Jr. to make it 21-7 at the end of the first half.

A big change in the game was the insertion of McNeese freshman quarterback Kamden Sixkiller at the end of the first half. Sixkiller had been a player Head Coach of the Cowboys Gary Goff had been trying to get in at the end of the season, and Saturday night was the day he got his first opportunity.

On the night, Sixkiller completed nine passes for 130 yards, one touchdown, and an interception with his touchdown coming on the first offensive play of the second half as he found Jihad Marks for a 77-yard touchdown to make it 21-14.

Sixkiller would lead the Cowboys on three straight scoring drives in the third quarter to make it just a 28-24 ballgame with 5:02 left to go in the quarter.

“He throws a great football and he’s extremely calm, this was the first college team he’s played and he got hurt towards the end of his senior year of high school so he hadn’t played ball in over a year, but I’m pretty proud of the young man and again he’s a little bit like Ryan Roberts in the sense that he’s never too high, never too low,” Goff said. “But you know I saw some good things and he’ll continue to improve.”

From that point on though the Lions would settle down as they put together two scoring drives in the fourth quarter to extend their lead as they went on to win the game by 14.

McNeese is now 0-8 on the season but will have another chance at getting their first official win of the season next Saturday at home against Houston Christian.