Box Score ABILENE, TEXAS – Turnovers can be the name of the game in football and on Saturday afternoon at Shotwell Stadium it was exactly that as Abilene Christian forced the University of the Incarnate Word into five turnovers that resulted in 27 points in a 40-6 victory.

The five turnovers for the Cardinals (3-4) were the most for the team in the Larry Kennan era.  The last time the team committed five turnovers was in a 61-16 loss at Abilene Christian on November 22, 2011. 

The Wildcats (5-3) used a strong game from quarterback John David Baker who went 20-of-31 for 263 yards and three touchdowns.  His two favorite targets were Taylor Gabriel who had six catches for 87 yards and a score and Darian Hogg who had five catches for 72 yards.  The defensive star of the game was Angel Lopez who had a pair of interceptions and a team high 10 tackles.

The game began ominously for the Cardinals.  After stopping the Wildcats on a 3-and-out, the Cardinals fumbled the ball on their first play from scrimmage giving it back to ACU with a short field.  The Wildcats took six plays to put the ball in the end zone on a 5-yard pass from Baker to Darrell Cantu-Harkless with 11:01 left in the first quarter.  A missed extra-point made it 6-0.

The Cardinals responded with an impressive 7-play, 77-yard drive.  They picked up a pair of first downs by running the ball and then freshman Broderick Reeves (Mexia/Mexia HS) exploded for a highlight-film 47-yard touchdown run.  He broke three tackles on the play and then outran the defense for the score with 8:07 remaining in the quarter.  UIW also missed their extra-point attempt and the score was tied 6-6.

ACU reclaimed the lead on their next drive.  Baker completed a key third-and-10 pass to Darian Hogg for 24 yards to keep the drive alive.  Five plays later, Charcandrick West scored on a 5-yard run with 5:11 left in the first period.  The PAT made it 13-6 in favor of ACU.

Three first quarter turnovers turned into 13 points for the Wildcats.  Angel Lopez's second interception of the quarter gave ACU great field position at the UIW 26-yard line.  Two plays later, Baker hit Jamie Walker on an 18-yard scoring strike on the first play of the second quarter to make it 20-6.

Turnovers continued to haunt the Cardinals in the second quarter.  After giving up a 38-yard field goal to Nik Grau midway through the quarter, the teams traded punts.  Unfortunately, when the Wildcats punted away to the Cardinals the ball was muffed and recovered by ACU at the UIW 13-yard line with 1:33 remaining in the half.  Two plays later, Baker hit Taylor Gabriel with a beautiful 17-yard fade route for a touchdown to make it 30-6 heading into halftime.

In a quick moving second half, the Wildcats added a field goal in the third quarter.  The Cardinals moved the ball into ACU territory on back-to-back drives in the third and fourth quarters.  On the first one, the team faced a fourth-and-5 at the ACU 40-yard line.  They attempted a fake punt and the pass was incomplete.  On the next drive, the Cardinals moved the ball 63 yards in 10 plays, but a mishandled snap resulted inside the Red Zone resulted in the fifth turnover of the day.

The Wildcats tacked on a late touchdown on a 6-yard run by Baker with 4:31 remaining in the game capping a 13-play, 88-yard drive.

The Cardinals showed a strong run game picking up 228 yards on 41 carries.  Quarterback Trent Brittain (Eastland/Eastland HS) eclipsed the 100-yard mark only to have a negative run drop him back to 97 yards on a18 carries.  Reeves added 67 yards on five carries and Junior Sessions (Mesquite/Mesquite HS) finished with 61 yards on 13 carries.  The team struggled in the passing game with only 79 yards through the air.  Casey Jennings (Fremont, CA/Washington HS) led the team with four grabs for 56 yards.

Brandon Tanksley (Katy/Morton Ranch HS) led the UIW defense with a career high 12 tackles in the game.  Devin Haywood (San Antonio/Roosevelt HS) added four tackles, two tackles for loss, a sack and a pass breakup.

The Wildcats finished with 433 yards of total offense with 263 through the air and 170 on the ground.  Cantu-Harkless had a good game with 83 rushing yards on five carries.  West added 73 yards and 15 carries.  In addition to Lopez on defense, Nic Richardson added 2.5 tackles for loss and a sack.

The teams had similar numbers in a many statistical categories.  ACU had 22 first downs while the Cardinals had 20 and each team ran 67 offensive plays.  The Wildcats had possession of the ball for 22 seconds more than UIW.  ACU converted 7-of-15 third downs while the Cardinals were 6-for-14.  The two big differences were the Wildcats holding a +5 turnover margin and they were a perfect 7-for-7 in the Red Zone while the Cardinals were 0-for-2.

The Cardinals are back in action next Saturday at 6 p.m. against Houston Baptist at Benson Stadium on Homecoming.
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