Bearkat football team dominates Cardinals 56-7, move to second in Southland Conference standings

With Walter Peyton Award candidate Tim Flanders leading the way, the Sam Houston State Bearkats defeated the Lamar Cardinals 56-7 to move to number two in the Southland Conference standings, behind only Central Arkansas. The Kats also moved to number four in both national FCS polls.

Sam Houston is ranked in the top ten of both major polls for the 18th consecutive week, while being ranked in the top 20 of these polls for the 21st straight week.

“It was a good overall victory,” SHSU head coach Willie Fritz said. “We came out of the box fast and furious.”

This was the Bearkats’ (6-2, 4-1 SLC) fifth straight win, and the third consecutive year they have beaten the Cardinals (3-6, 0-4 SLC).

Flanders finished with 136 yards and four touchdowns on 16 carries for his 20th career game with over one hundred yards. SHSU’s all-time leading rusher became the all-time leading scorer for Sam Houston with his four touchdowns (300 points on 50 touchdowns).

The Bearkats finished with 378 total rushing yards and had six different rushers with double digit yardage, including Keshawn Hill, who rushed for 90 yards and a touchdown. Running back Cody Morgan punched in a three-yard touchdown run late in the fourth quarter to put the Cardinals away for good.

Quarterback Brian Bell threw his 40th touchdown pass of his career, passing up former SHSU quarterback Dustin Long’s record of 39 set in 2004. Bell had 84 passing yards on the day, including a 48-yard strike to wide receiver Trey Diller in the second quarter after a Cardinal turnover.

Bell was not the only Sam Houston passer against the Cardinals. Richard Sincere finally got to show off his arm as he connected with Brandon Wilkinson for a 42-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter.

“We’ve been having that in the play book for a while,” Sincere said to gobearkats.com. “They finally decided to call it. I was really looking forward to it.”

Bell, who has 4,924 career passing yards, trails only Rhett Bomar, who holds the current school record with 5,964 yards. The gap between total yards, however, is much closer. Bell has racked up 5,694 yards in his career while Bomar holds the record at 6,160.

Kicker Miguel Antonio also broke a record on Saturday, passing up former SHSU kicker Billy Hayes (258 points from 1985-1988) and now has 264 total points from 42 field goals made and 138 point-after attempts.

While his twin brother Darius was serving a one game suspension, Darnell Taylor had four solo tackles and one assisted tackle as he led the Bearkat defense to holding the Cardinals to only 181 total yards on offense.

Taylor is also now knocking on the door of a previous SHSU record. He is six solo tackles away from tying Stan Blinka’s record of 215 while he played here from 1975-1978. Taylor is only the fourth Bearkats ever to record over 200 solo tackles.

Early in the second quarter, Gary Lorance forced a fumble from Lamar running back DePaul Garrett, which was recovered by J.T. Cleveland and taken to Lamar’s one yard line. This set up Flanders’ second touchdown of the day.

“Our defense got us in some good positions,” Fritz said.

Along with an interception by Bookie Sneed, the Bearkats recovered two of the four fumbles the Cardinals had, making it a good day defensively for the Kats. The only points given up were on an 89-yard kick return by Lamar’s Kevin Johnson in the third quarter.

The Bearkats will try and take some of the momentum they gained in this game into Saturday’s match-up against Southeastern Louisiana, who are coming off of a loss to Central Arkansas. This is the final home game of the regular season for the Bearkats. Kickoff is set for 2 p.m.