Football Ends 2008 Season

November 8, 2008

COMMERCE, Texas – Southwestern Oklahoma State University ended its 2008 football season with a tough 21-3 road loss to Texas A&M-Commerce Saturday in Commerce, Texas.

The loss left SWOSU with a 3-8 record and 1-4 in the Lone Star Conference North Division. TAMC improved to 5-5 overall and 3-2 in the division. The game was the last for Bulldog coach Ryan Held who announced his resignation earlier this week.

SWOSU churned up 305 yards of total offense but turned the ball over five times killing potential scoring drives, twice by interception and three times by fumble.

Quarterback Steve Day led SWOSU offensively completing 22-of-44 passes for 265 yards. He added yet another record to his already spectacular season by throwing for 2,561 yards, the most ever thrown by a SWOSU quarterback in a year.

Kyle Wimberly was Day’s primary target finishing with six catches for 91 yards. Wimberly also gained record book entry by finishing the year with 51 catches, breaking the mark of 50 set by Danny Howard in the 2005 season.

SWOSU’s only points came on a 40-yard field goal by Chad McIntosh with 3:22 left in the second quarter. The field goal trimmed TAMC’s lead to 7-3. McIntosh was set up by the SWOSU defense that forced the Lions to punt out of their own endzone, giving the Bulldogs the ball at TAMC 35. Day found Steve Ihekona on a 13-yard pass on the drive’s first play to put the Bulldogs in field goal range.

Nabel El-Amin had 19 carries for 91 yards and scored on a 51-yard run to help Commerce move to a 14-3 lead midway through the third quarter.

The final score came thanks to a bit of trickery by the Lions when quarterback Terry Mayo caught a 20-yard reverse pass from wide receiver Taylor Fore with 10:08 left in the game.

Defensively, SWOSU was led by Jaron Burgess and Ruzell McCoy who each finished with 13 tackles. McCoy finished as the team’s leading tackler recording 107 on the year.