Baylor gets first win over Long Island
WACO, Texas— It took longer than anticipated, but the Baylor Bears finally were able to get into the win column. After 60 minutes of football, and a near two hour lightning delay, Baylor wound up on top of the Long Island Sharks by a score of 30-7.
The Bears now look to open Big 12 play next Saturday at 6pm when the rival Texas Longhorns come to town.
It was a slow start for both teams as Baylor went three and out on the opening possession. They then forced the Sharks to punt and proceeded to go on a 13 play, 92 yard drive that was capped off with a Richard Reese 13 yard touchdown run to give the Bears a 7-0 at the end of the first quarter.
It was clear early on that head coach Dave Aranda wanted to get reps for everybody on his roster that he could. True freshman Dawson Pendergrass was the shining example of that, scoring his first collegiate touchdown on a 1-yard run to make it 14-0.
“The moment is not too big for him,” Aranda said about Pendergrass. “When all of it is coming at him, it’s a normal everyday thing. So I think his ability to take these big situations, big possessions and make them into an everyday task, really brings it down to where he can just be him.”
Pendergrass finished the day as the leading rusher, gaining 111 yards on 21 carries and a touchdown.
On the ensuing Long Island possession, the snap on the punt went over the head of the punter and out the back of the end zone for a safety. However, the Sharks did not let the half end without making some noise themselves.
With 40 seconds left, quarterback Chris Howell kept it himself and scored from 10 yards out, making it 16-7 at the break. Not more than a few seconds after the clock hit zero to end the first half, a storm rolled into Waco and caused a 20 minute halftime to become a 120 minute lightning delay.
“There’s not a lot of times you have a do-over,” Aranda said after a slow first half. “I thought the rain delay gave us that opportunity. I thought when we came back out after that, the energy and the edge and all of those things we talked about, definitely was there.”
Baylor came out of the locker room ready to play in the second half. After forcing a punt, the offense went on a long slow drive that took over six minutes off of the clock, building up to a 13 yard scoring run by Reese.
After both teams traded punts, Long Island opened the fourth quarter on a 10 play drive that ended up stalling at the Baylor 27 yard line. The Bears then responded with their own 10 play drive that resulted in a 3-yard touchdown strike from Sawyer Robertson to Drake Dabney.
With just seconds remaining, the Sharks lined up for a 43-yard field goal but it was blocked by Trey Wilson and the clock ran down to solidify the first Baylor win of the season.