Published: November 01, 2009 01:38 am      

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Red zone miscues costly in FSU loss

FAIRMONT — On Halloween the red zone proved to be a house of horrors for Fairmont State’s football team here Saturday against visiting Concord University.

Trailing 9-0 after the first 30 minutes, Fairmont took advantage of short fields on its first three drives of the second half to quickly move the ball inside the Concord 20. However, all three drives, two of which started with first-and-goal situations, ended in turnovers and the Mountain Lions held off FSU, 15-9.

“I can sum it up for you pretty quickly,” said a disgusted Falcon quarterback J.J. Mayer without even being asked a question. “We made too many mistakes in the red zone.

“You just can’t turn the ball over in the red zone like we did today and expect to win. Twice we were inside the 10 and I made mistakes. I threw two interceptions. As a quarterback I’ve got to make better decisions with the ball. I probably should’ve tucked the one and ran it and the second one got tipped. On Cody’s (Reed) fumble he was fighting to get in the end zone and the guy just put a helmet on the ball. It was unfortunate, but it happened.

“Had we been able to get a touchdown on any one of those drives then the whole complexion of game would’ve changed because our defense was playing great and as an offense we would’ve had momentum.

The loss dropped FSU to 3-7 overall on the year and to 3-4 in the West Virginia Conference.

The victory, on the other hand, was sweet for first-year Concord coach Mike Kellar, who began his college coaching career at Fairmont State. It improved the Mountain Lions to 6-4 overall on the year, to 4-3 in the league and guaranteed the school its first winning season since 1998.

“We told the guys all week that we hadn’t won a West Virginia Conference road game in I don’t know how many years and that we had a chance today to secure our first winning season since 1998,” said Kellar. “The guys all know I’m from here and if they didn’t I've said hello to everyone and their brother here the last two days so they know now. To come back home and play well and get a victory here was important to me for a lot of

obvious reasons and I’m very proud of the guys for the way they got it done out there for us today.”

Concord took the lead in the game for good on its second drive when the Mountain Lions marched 86 yards in 16 plays in the rain, the last 15 of which came on the ground. The touchdown came on a fourth-and-two play when Brian Kennedy took a pitch and bulled his way into the end zone to make it 6-0 with 4:25 remaining in the opening quarter. FSU, though, blocked the extra point attempt.

Later in the half, which was dominated by Concord, the Mountain Lions drove 41 yards in 10 plays and made it 9-0 at the break on a 41-yard field goal by Brandon Strupp.

“After the first drive our quarterback came off the field and told me he couldn’t feel the ball at all,” said Kellar. “It had a lot of air in it and it was like throwing a greased watermelon. I made up my mind right then I was going to run it virtually every play.”

Concord rolled up 176 total yards in the first half, 166 of which came on the ground. In the second half, though, FSU's defense clamped down on Concord and held the Mountain Lions to just 103 total yards, 65 of which came on a long pass from quarterback Steven Hearons to Thomas Mayo which set up the game-securing touchdown. That TD came on a nine-yard pass from Hearons to Nathan Tanner on a fourth-and-goal play with 2:07 to play.

Once again, FSU blocked the extra point attempt and this time the Falcons’ Brandon Tucker gathered the ball in around the 15-yard line and raced 85 yards for a defensive two-point conversion to make it 15-2.

After the ensuing kickoff, Fairmont promptly marched 54 yards in eight plays and closed the gap to 15-9 on a 14-yard touchdown pass from Mayer to Jeff Smothers with 47 seconds left.

FSU’s onside kick attempt, however, traveled just two yards and Concord was able to run out the clock.

The turning point in the game, though, was Fairmont’s inability to capitalize in the red zone. FSU’s Zack Page returned the second half kickoff 34 yards to the Mountain Lions’ 45 to put his team in business.

Six plays later on second-and-goal from the eight, Mayer attempted to get the ball to Travis Hawthorne on a crossing route near the goal line, but the pass was tipped and intercepted by Concord's Aaron Flythe.

Fairmont started its next drive at the Concord 40 and on a second-and-12 play from the 18, Mayer connected with fullback Cody Reed on a 17-yard pass. Reed was fighting to get in the end zone when Concord's R.J. Anderson forced a fumble at the one yard line and teammate Cameron Tarver pounced on it.

“It was really frustrating because in the second half we were kind of pounding on them on offense and we were in the red zone a bunch there early on and every time it seemed like we were going to score something bad happened to us and they got the ball back,” said Reed. “Momentum is such a big part of this sport and even if we had gotten a field goal on one of those we would've been right back in the game and down just one score with the momentum.”

After a second three-and-out by Concord on offense, Fairmont took over for its third drive of the half at the Mountain Lion 36. A 10-yard run by Reed, a two-yard run by Doug Brazill and a 19-yard pass from Mayer to Hawthrone gave the Falcons a first-and-goal at the Concord five. On first down, Brazill was thrown for a six-yard loss and on second down Mayer's pass attempt in the flat was tipped and intercepted by a diving Tony Keiling for the Mountain Lions.

Later in the fourth quarter still trailing 9-0, another FSU drive reached the red zone, but Alex Ashley’s 26-yard field goal attempt with five minutes to play was blocked by Concord’s Daniel Stone.

“If you watch Fairmont those things have seemed to happen to them this season,” said Kellar. “One thing we talked about with our players is that no matter what you’ve got to keep playing because you never know what’s going to happen. I’m proud of our defense. They made plays today when we had to have them.

“Most offenses shoot themselves in the foot. Once we got the lead that was something we were trying to guard against doing. On the drives when we struggled today we had a holding penalty, a dropped pass, an illegal motion penalty and you can’t recover from those things. We’re not good enough to do that on offense right now and neither are they.”

Both teams will close out the regular season next Saturday with road games. The Mountain Lions will visit league champion West Liberty (9-1, 7-0) for a 1 p.m. game, while FSU pays a visit to Institute to battle West Virginia State (2-7, 1-6) at 1 p.m.