ARKADELPHIA – The 10th-ranked Ouachita Baptist University football team moved to 6-0 on the year and secured the program's 16th consecutive winning season with a 40-0 victory over East Central on Saturday for homecoming.
The Tiger defense set up the offense all afternoon with half of ECU's offensive possessions ending in a three-and-out and another ending on an interception by
Dawson Miller, who had a return of 22 yards. The longest ECU drive was nine plays for 32 yards ending in a punt. Ouachita forced the orange and black Tigers to punt 10 times.
Ouachita limited ECU to just 88 yards of total offense. The orange Tigers were 2-for-13 on third downs. On the flipside, Ouachita balanced its offensive attack with 505 yards of total offense – 225 through the air and 280 on the ground.
The Ouachita offense had the ball first and marched 75 yards on nine plays capped by a seven-yard touchdown run by quarterback
Nate TenBarge. After forcing a three-and-out on ECU's first drive, Ouachita opened up the playbook for its next score coming three plays later on a 43-yard touchdown pass from running back
Kendel Givens to
Hank Hatfield, who was wide open in the middle of the field.
The two squads exchanged interceptions in the next two possessions to give Ouachita a 14-0 lead heading into the second quarter.
Ouachita kicker
Dax Jaggers bookended the second quarter with a pair of long field goals. The first was a 49-yarder in the first few seconds of the quarter and the second was a 60-yarder in the final seconds of the period. The 60-yard field goal is a new school record, breaking
Gabe Goodman's record of 55 yards in a 48-7 win over Northwestern Oklahoma State in 2022. Jaggers' kick, from the snap of
Braden Reed and hold of
Tom Weston, is the second-longest field goal in the history of the Great American Conference.
Givens was responsible for Ouachita's two scores in the third quarter with a four-yard score midway through the period and a one-yard score in the last minute to give the Tigers a 34-0 lead heading into the final 15 minutes.
The second string got in on the scoring in the fourth quarter with
Riley Harms connecting with
Chris Hightower for a 25-yard touchdown pass with five minutes remaining to finalize the scoring.
TenBarge finished the game 14-for-22 with 151 yards passing and added a team-best 110 rushing yards on 16 carries. Givens had stats in three different categories with 40 rushing yards, 46 passing yards, and 20 receiving yards.
Lyric Tredwell added nine rushes for 92 yards.
Connor Flannigan had a team-high eight receptions for 80 yards.
The defense came up with 10 tackles for loss, including four sacks.
Chance Taylor,
Mikey Gonzalez,
Brock Baker, and
Connor Schorp all had sacks in the win. Taylor and
Jax Miller led the Tigers in total tackles with five each.
The streak of 16 consecutive winning seasons for the Tigers is the program's longest and the longest active streak among all college football teams in the state of Arkansas. Ouachita is 130-40 combined since the streak began in 2008.
Saturday's win was the sixth consecutive win on homecoming and the 11th straight win over East Central.
Ouachita is now set for a top 10 battle next Saturday, October 19 at home against defending national champion Harding, ranked No. 1 in the nation. That kickoff is set for 7 p.m. at Cliff Harris Stadium.
