By RICK PETERSON
TopSports.news
Washburn University's football team found the best way to get over heartbreaking loss -- a runaway win.
After taking a 32-30 last-second loss the previous week at nationally-ranked Northwest Misouri, the Ichabods rolled to a 37-9 Homecoming win over Central Oklahoma on Saturday at Yager Stadium, improving to 5-3 on the season.
Washburn senior star James Letcher Jr. scores his third touchdown of the day on a 78-yard punt return in Saturday's 37-9 Homecoming win over Central Oklahoma. [Photo by Rex Wolf/TSN]
James Letcher Jr. (left) celebrates his third touchdown of Saturday's 37-9 win over Central Oklahoma with teammate Andrew Pujado. [Photo by Rex Wolf/TSN]
"This was huge, huge,'' Washburn coach Craig Schurig said. "The kids were good all week but you just tell that type of loss we had last week still stung and it was still on everyone's mind.
"This helps a lot and we played real well. We didn't wallow in it and the leadership of our seniors really took over.''
Washburn senior defensive back Channon Ross, who had one of the Ichabods' three interceptions against Central Oklahoma, said that after being burned on Northwest's game-winning drive, it was important for the Ichabod defense to show out Saturday.
"All week in practice the defense felt like it was on us last week,'' Ross said. "The offense played great, so we felt like this game was us. Everybody was looking at us thinking they could throw the ball and we had to make them pay for it.
"I think we responded very well and did what we had to do.''
After a scoreless first quarter, Kameron Lake got the Ichabods on the scoreboard with a 26-yard field goal with 6:47 to play in the second quarter, capping a 16-play, 66-yard drive to take a 3-0 lead.
After the Ichabods forced a punt, Washburn then wrapped up the opening half with a 15-play, 87-yard drive, capped by Kellen Simoncic's 1-yard run on a quarterback keeper.
Washburn the proceeded to dominate the second half, opening up a commanding 37-3 advantage midway through the fourth quarter.
"We just wanted to continue to keep playing hard,'' said Washburn senior James Letcher Jr., who had three touchdowns on the day. "We knew what we were trying to do. A lot of stuff we tried in the first half wasn't really working so we fixed that in the second half.''
UCO took the opening kickoff of the second half and went backwards one yard in its three plays. Ater a 33-yard punt Washburn needed five plays to march 57 yards in 87 seconds, with Ichabod record-holder Letcher taking a direct snap and scoring from 12 yards out to put Washburn up 16-0 with 12:31 to play in the third quarter.
The Ichabods; Brendan Harden picked off a pass on a Broncho third-down play and returned it to the UCO 20, setting up Simoncic's to 11-yard TD pass to Letcher that stretched Washburn's lead to 23-0.
After being shut out the first three quarters, the Bronchos opened the fourth quarter with a 41-yard field goal by Nick Quevedo to cut Washburn's lead to 23-3, .
Channon Ross picked off a pass to set up a Simoncic 16-yard TD pass to former Shawnee Heights standout Tyce Brown and Letcher returned a punt 78 yards for a TD with 6:06 left in the fourth quarter.
The return helped push Letcher's career all-purpose yards total to 5,216 yards, passing Troy Slusser's 5,210 atop the Ichabod charts.
UCO would wrap up the scoring with 40 seconds to play in the game cutting the lead to 37-9 and ending the Bronchos' four-game winning streak.
Letcher finished with eight catches for 67 yards and one score while rushing for nine yards and one score and adding the special teams return.
Taylon Peters led the Ichabods on the ground with 65 yards on 15 carries.
Simoncic finished 23 of 36 passing for 211 yards and two scores while rushing for one.
Brown had seven catches for 68 yards.
Grant Bruner and Brendan Harden tied for the team lead for the Ichabods with nine tackles each with Harden adding a tackle for loss and an interception.
The Ichabod defense finished with three sacks for 14 yards and 11 tackles for loss for 28 yards, with Phoenix Smith recording two sacks for 13 yards.
Washburn finished with 363 yards in offense holding the Bronchos (5-3, 5-3 MIAA) to 252.
Washburn returns to the road next week at Northeastern State.
WASHBURN 37, CENTRAL OKLAHOMA 9
Central Oklahoma (5-3, 5-3) 0 0 0 9 -- 9
Washburn (5-3, 5-3) 0 9 14 14 -- 37
Second quarter
Washburn -- Lake 26 FG, 6:47
Washburn -- Simoncic 1 run (kick failed), 0:21
Third quarter
Washburn -- Letcher 12 run (Lake kick), 12:31
Washburn -- Letcher 11 pass from Simoncic (Lake kick), 11:12
Fourth quarter
Central Oklahoma -- Quevedo 41 FG, 14:27
Washburn -- Brown 16 pass from Simoncic (Lake kick), 10:14
Washburn -- Letcher 78 punt return (Lake kick), 6:06
Central Oklahoma -- Richards 10 pass from Thompson (run failed), 0:37
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
Rushing -- Central Oklahoma: Gardner 3-43, Smith 4-11, Scott 1-4, Cottrell 3-4, Carney 2-3, Brown 11-2, Kemper 1-1, Team 1-0. Washburn: Peters 15-65, Afful 1-37, Browning 9-18, Bowden 4-15, Simoncic 5-9, Letcher 3-9, Team 1-(minus)-1.
Passing -- Central Oklahoma: Brown 20-31-2, 150 yards; Thompson 8-14-1, 34. Washburn: Simoncic 23-36-2, 211.
Receiving -- Central Oklahoma: McGee 6-53, Wilson 4-45, Hammond 3-0, Bizzell 2-19, Hunt 2-16, Carney 2-11, Cottrell 2-6, Dangerfield 2-5, Richards 1-10, Davis 1-9, Kemper 1-9, Delso 1-3, Dunn 1-(minus)-2. Washburn: Letcher 8-67, Brown 7-68, Keller 2-33, Peters 2-17, Simmons 2-10, Afful 1-14, Searcy 1-2.
Punting -- Central Oklahoma: Vargas 4-44.0. Washburn: Zeller 4-47.0.
Tackles -- Central Oklahoma: Johnson 4 solo-5 assists-9 total. Washburn: Bruner 5-4-9, Harden 4-5-9.
Attendance -- 5,815.
