By PATRICK MEEHAN, Centenary Sports Information Director
MARSHALL, Texas — The Centenary football team fell 47-8 to the East Texas Baptist University Tigers on Saturday night in a non-conference game at Ornelas Stadium.
The Gents (1-3) fumbled on the game’s first offensive play and ETBU recovered, leading to a Paul Woodard 4-yard touchdown rush just three plays later and the Tigers took a 7-0 lead with 13:54 remaining in the first quarter.
Centenary forced an ETBU punt with 9:38 left in the first and the snap was bad, forcing the Tigers’ punter to run out of the back of the end zone for a Gents’ safety to make it 7-2. Woodard scored on a 19-yard TD run to make it 14-2 with 3:29 left in the period.
ETBU quarterback Kaden Brown’s 25-yard TD pass to wide receiver Trayjen Llanas-Wilcox extended the Tigers’ lead to 21-2 with 9:38 remaining in the second quarter and the lead swelled to 28-2 following a Hymond Drinkard 2-yard TD run.
The Gents finally found the end zone at the 3:25 mark of the second quarter as junior quarterback Zin’Tavious Smith of Coushatta and Red River High found junior transfer Kobe Chambers for a 61-yard TD pass to make it 28-8, but the two-point conversion run failed.
The Tigers returned the second half kickoff 95 yards and cashed in immediately on the next play as Woodard scored from two yards out to make it 34-8 with 14:40 left in the third quarter. Brown connected with Llanas-Wilcox for an 8-yard TD pass at the 13:40 mark of the fourth quarter as the Tigers made it a 41-8 game. Brown tossed another TD pass to WR Elias Dejean for 10 yards with 8:31 left in the game to make it 47-8 and the two-point attempt failed.
ETBU piled up 25 first downs to 11 for the visitors. The Lions ran for 252 of their 493 total yards while Centenary got 112 of its 209 yards on the ground.
Shreveport freshmen Delarrious Marshall and Jacob Wilson each had nine tackles to pace the Gents on defense.
The Gents play three of their next four games at home beginning with a non-conference contest against Lyon College (1-3) on Saturday evening with kickoff set for 6 p.m. at Atkins Field.
Contact Patrick at pmeehan@centenary.edu