SAN ANTONIO –  The University of the Incarnate Word football team won its first Southland Conference home game against Abilene Christian on Saturday night, 31-24.

Kam Williams had a team-best 105 receiving yards on seven catches. Jon Copeland went 18-for-35 and had 107 passing yards. Ameer King registered 66 rushing yards, while Keyondrick Philio had 30 yards and rushed for three touchdowns.
 
The Cardinals took the first lead of the game when they marched down the field in a drive that took 7:35 off the clock. After 19 plays that encompassed 91 yards, Philio charged his way through ACU's defense for a 5-yard touchdown to give the Cardinals a 7-0 advantage with 3:05 left in the quarter.
 
UIW added a touchdown with 4:53 left in the half. Philio rushed for 20 yards, putting the Cardinals at first and goal at the one-yard line. Philio, bolstered by the offensive line, then pushed his way across the goal line to conclude the 13-play, 56-yard drive. The Cardinals came up short on a two-point conversion attempt, extending their advantage to 13-0.
 
ACU had first and goal on the UIW 7, but the Cardinal defense stood strong. The Wildcats settled for a 23-yard field goal from Blair Zepeda with six seconds left before the break to leave UIW with a 13-3 lead.
 
The Cardinals extended their lead early in the second half. The drive started with an interception from Shawn Holton and included back-to-back 13-yard passes from Copeland to Williams, a 17-yard rush by Ameer King, and then a 1-yard touchdown scramble by King. The drive, which took five plays and 1:29 off the clock, gave the Cardinals a 20-3 advantage with 11:52 left in the third quarter.
 
The Wildcats cut into UIW's lead with 7:23 left in the third quarter, scoring when Luke Anthony found Josh Fink in the end zone for a 15-yard touchdown. ACU added another touchdown with 3:42 left in the quarter when Anthony connected with Justus Lee for a 14-yard score, leaving UIW up 20-17.
 
UIW took advantage of another ACU turnover. Tre Richardson grabbed an interception and returned it 56 yards into Wildcat territory. Carson Mohr then hit a 36-yard field goal to push the Cardinal lead to 23-17.
 
The Cardinals scored again with 7:32 left in the game. Kam Williams set up the score with a 26-yard reception before Philio walked into the end zone for a one-yard touchdown. Philio then succeeded in the two-point conversion attempt to put the Cardinals ahead, 31-17.
 
ACU made their last attempt to cut into UIW's lead with 2:40 left in the game, when Tray James rushed for 1 yard into the endzone.
 
The Wildcats forced UIW to punt the ball with less than a minute left and the Cardinals defense responded. Jaylon Jimmerson snatched his second interception of the season with two seconds left to seal UIW's first conference win by a final score of 31-24.

Opening statement from Head Coach Eric Morris…
Any time you can win in this conference, I think it's really good. I think there's a lot of parity in this conference, that's a really good football team we just beat. They probably should be undefeated in conference but they missed a field goal against UCA and then they beat McNeese at home pretty handily last week, I know it was a weird flip thing at the end, but they controlled the game. We knew they were going to be well-coached, stingy defense. We were just so sporadic. We made some third down conversions on offense, yards weren't there like we want, explosions weren't there like we want. Put together some nice drives at key times. A couple key fourth downs there on the goal line were huge for us. Philio played amazing down there, got a big body to get it downhill. And then the turnovers by the defense, I mean that was back to what they did last year. Young guys, I mean we have three freshmen that had interceptions, you know those are guys we've been harping on that have been hurting us, and possibly those three guys won us this football game. Blitzed a little bit more this game, try to heat him up, get it out of his hands and let our guys make plays so it didn't stretch down the field. We were really effective with that. A win's a win, I'll take it. I don't care about one stat on here besides the W. Got to move forward in a hurry cause we face a good Houston Baptist team next week. 
 
We'll continue to grow, this team's not even close to a finished product right now with the youth that we have right now. Got to get better each and every week and to find a way to squeak one out was awesome. 
 
On defense…
I think we got some pressure on the quarterback to make him get it out of his hands. That was key. Our pass rush was better tonight, and then we had some blitzes schemed up that way we knew the ball had to come out of his hands on these blitzes and let these guys kind of read the quarterback's eyes and get some interceptions.
 
I thought these guys found a way to win together, which is the first time I've seen it in a while. Which is awesome as a head coach, I think anytime all three phases of the ball come up big together at certain points in the game. And I thought we played better together. We went off each other's energy a couple of times, we were able to capitalize a couple times when they made mistakes and make it cost for them.