ARKADELPHIA – The third-ranked Ouachita Baptist University football team wrapped up the 2022 season on Saturday with a 47-17 loss to eighth-ranked Northwest Missouri State at home in the opening round of the NCAA Division II playoffs.
The loss is Ouachita's first of the season, and gives the Tigers a final season record of 11-1. Northwest improves to 10-2 and advances into the second round of the playoffs where it will travel to Allendale, Michigan next Saturday to face the No. 1 team in the nation, Grand Valley State. GVSU had a first-round bye as the No. 1 seed in Super Region 3.
Although the season ends in a losing fashion, the Tigers look back on many achievements from the 2022 campaign. Ouachita went undefeated for the regular season for the fourth time in the modern era, all coming in the last eight years. The Tigers also turned in their 14th consecutive winning season, the longest such streak among all colleges in the state of Arkansas. The NCAA playoffs appearance was the Tigers' fifth in the last eight years. Ouachita also won its sixth Great American Conference championship in the 11-year history of the league.
As for Saturday's game, the Bearcats controlled the game from the early-going, forcing the Tigers to a three-and-out on their first possession, and then getting a scoop-and-score 18-yard fumble return for a touchdown on the next Tiger drive.
Ouachita responded with a short drive, but long enough to get within
Gabe Goodman's field goal range. The Arkadelphia native connected from 37 yards out for his eighth field goal of the year to put the Tigers on the board late in the first quarter.
Ouachita's defense kept the Tigers in the game early, forcing a Bearcat field goal early in the second quarter to keep the game at a one-score margin. However, the Bearcats defense held Ouachita scoreless through the rest of the second quarter and late into the third quarter, while building a 40-3 lead heading into the final period.
The Tigers broke its scoring silence with a 12-play, 67-yard drive in the first four minutes of the fourth period, capped by a two-yard touchdown pass from
Riley Harms to
Tucker Swoboda. Ouachita finalized the scoring with a touchdown in the final seconds of the game, this time a one-yard touchdown rush by
Kendel Givens to cap an 11-play, 80-yard drive.
Despite being limited to just 19 rushing yards by the nation's second-best rushing defense, Ouachita senior running back
TJ Cole wrapped up his collegiate career by breaking the program's single-season rushing record with a final total of 1,672 yards. He broke William Miller's previous record of 1,668 yards in 1978.
