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| Antonio Williams |
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- Late was the operative word Saturday -- and for the Miner football team, late ended up being the word that spelled doom.
UMR lost starting quarterback Brad Guidry to a broken leg when he took a late hit in the closing moments of the first half and Butler was able to mount a fourth quarter rally against a worn-down Miner defense to force overtime and win the game in the extra period 28-21 at Butler Bowl.
Guidry suffered the injury on a play when he threw a touchdown pass to Ashton Gronewold with 33 seconds to go in the half to give UMR a 21-7 lead it would take to the half. But without Guidry at the controls, the Miner offense bogged down after the intermission and left the defense to try to hold off the Bulldogs.
Butler had the ball for 35:42 in regulation time and mounted scoring drives of 69 and 52 yards to tie the game with under three minutes to play. The Bulldogs then scored on their second play in overtime and stopped UMR on downs on its possession to end the game.
The Miners opened the scoring with an impressive 11-play, 78-yard drive that was capped off by a three-yard scoring run by Antonio Williams midway through the first period. Guidry completed all seven of his pass attempts on the drive and his 21-yard strike to Chad Shockley put UMR on the Butler 10. Williams carried the ball on the next two plays and eventually scored from the three.
Butler came back to tie the game halfway through the second quarter. A 30-yard pass from T.J. Brown to Derek North moved the ball to the Miner one, then Scott Gray finally got into the end zone after being stopped short twice by the UMR defense to tie the game at seven.
The special teams unit got the lead back for the Miners six minutes later. Steve Edwards broke through and blocked Mike Morgan's punt, then Matt Loula scooped up the loose ball and went five yards for the go-ahead score.
Then the UMR defense jumped into the act, recovering Ricky Trujillo's fumble in Butler territory to give the Miner offense a chance to extend the lead before halftime. Five plays after moving the ball to the Bulldog 18, Guidry hit a diving Gronewold in the end zone to make it 21-7, but also suffered the game-ending injury when he was hit after releasing the pass.
UMR used reserve quarterback Matt Sachtleben and wide receiver Mike Greaving at quarterback throughout the second half, but the offensive unit managed to pick up only 65 yards of total offense after the break. Meanwhile, the Bulldogs were kept in check by the defense until a key moment in the fourth quarter.
Facing fourth-and-seven from the Miner 22, Brown took off and ran 14 yards for a first down to keep the drive going. On the next play, he connected with Tom Mulvihill to cut the lead in half.
UMR got a three-and-out on Butler's next possession, but picked up only one yard when it got the ball back and gave it back to the Bulldogs at their own 48 with 5:33 to go. A 22-yard run by Gray and an 18-yard pass from Brown to Kyle Bush put Butler at the Miner 10, then Gray carried three times and scored on the third run from a yard away. Jordan Quiroz's extra point tied the game at 21.
The Miners were able to get a first down when they got the ball back, but ended up losing it on downs and gave Butler a last chance to win it. The Bulldogs drove to the UMR 35, but Quiroz came up short on a 52-yard field goal effort to win the game.
However, the Bulldogs got the ball first in overtime and got in the end zone on their second play as Brown hit Dan Bohrer with a 19-yard scoring pass. UMR had a botched handoff that resulted in a five-yard loss on the initial play of its overtime possession, then three straight incompletions ended it.
Guidry was 16-of-23 for 131 yards while he was in the game, while the replacements were able to complete only two of their 11 attempts. Gronewold had seven catches on the afternoon for 56 yards while Shockley caught five passes for 55 yards. David Shields ran for 59 yards to lead the UMR rushing attack.
The Miners had only 249 yards of total offense to Butler's 332 in the game.
UMR, now 1-3 on the season, will host Arkansas-Monticello in a 6:30 p.m. game Saturday at Allgood-Bailey Stadium. It will be Family Weekend at UMR and the game will also be "Responsibility Matters Night" which will be sponsored by Mullally Distributing.
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