UCA Turns Ball Over, Over and Out, Falling to Winless Utah Tech

ST. GEORGE, Utah — Nobody saw this coming. No. 9/11 Central Arkansas fell apart turning the ball over, over and over and it may have ended postseason chances.

Utah Tech came in winless and UCA gifted them with a shocking six turnovers. Now the Trailblazers are 1-9 overall and 1-5 in UAC play. The Bears fell to 6-3 overall and 3-2 in league play.

This 34-21 loss is one that’s going to haunt UCA.

“You can’t win a football game turning it over that much,’ said UCA head coach Nathan Brown. “You can’t make those mistakes, especially keep a team like this in the game. Obviously they got momentum going into the half, but I thought if we come out and score quick in the second half we can gain some of that momentum back. But we just weren’t able to.”

The Bears had four interceptions and lost two fumbles for a season-high six turnovers. losing the turnover battle 6-0. UCA quarterback Will McElvain, who entered the game with just three interceptions on the season, had four, of which two were tipped passes.

The six turnovers were the most since UCA had seven against Abilene Christian in 2014. Because of turnovers, Utah Tech had three scoring drives of just 29, 5 and 13 yards to win its first game of the season (1-9 overall, 1-5 in the UAC).

The Bears scored their second-lowest point total of the season, following last week’s 24 points in a win over North Alabama. UCA played without senior running back ShunDerrick Powell, the FCS leader in all-purpose yards and the No. 2 rusher in the nation, due to injury. Powell has accounted for 1,177 rushing yards and 13 rushing touchdowns (three more receiving) on the year.

Fellow senior Darius Hale picked up much of the slack, running 18 times for 140 yards (7.8 per carry) and scoring a pair of touchdowns on runs of 3 and 53 yards, the latter a season long for the Pearland, Texas, running back. McElvain completed 17 of 34 passes for 181 yards, including a 4-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Trejan Bridges that got the Bears within 34-21 with 8:24 left to play.

UCA’s defense, which was on the field for 78 offensive plays by the Trailblazers, had four players with double-figure tackles, led by junior linebacker Jace Benesch with a career-high 17 tackles. Senior safety TaMuarion Wilson had 14 tackles, including 1.5 tackles for loss. Senior linebacker Demetrias Charles added 13 tackles and sophomore safety Dillon Williams had 11 stops.

Senior defensive end David Walker extended his school record for career tackles for loss with three more, including a pair of sacks. Walker now has 57.5 tackles for loss and 29.0 sacks, just short of Jonathan Woodard’s school record of 30.5.

“You name it and it wasn’t good today,” said Brown. “It’s a tough loss and we’re going to take it hard, but got to get back to work. We have three more chances this year. We win out and get to nine wins, we’re 100 percent a playoff team”

UCA continues its road trip next Saturday, taking on the Eastern Kentucky Colonels in Richmond, Ky. Kickoff is set for 1 p.m.

Information from UCA Sports is included in this story.