SPRINGFIELD – Missouri State fell 36-35 to visiting Illinois State on Saturday with a final drive filled with the emotional extremes.
A 28-yard touchdown run by Missouri State’s Celdon Manning with 3:03 left in the game put the Bears ahead 35-28 here Saturday and put visiting Illinois State on the ropes in crunch time.
On the ensuing Illinois State drive, two video replays overturned potential game-ending stops by the Missouri State defense and kept the Redbirds’ hopes alive. Specifically, a fourth-and-five at the ISU 41 was marked short of the line to gain, turning the ball over on downs to MSU at the Illinois State 46. The replay officials overturned the spot, which awarded the Redbirds a first down. Seven plays later, Illinois State scored on a one-yard touchdown run by Wenkers Wright with 38 seconds left.
On ISU’s two-point try, a pass to Wright out of the backfield was ruled incomplete on the field, but was again overturned by the replay booth to give ISU a one-point win.
The Bears could gain no traction on their last-ditch effort in the final moments and ultimately turned it over on downs inside their own 10.
The controversial ending did little to disprove Missouri State’s resolve in the second half with the Bears overcoming a 17-14 halftime deficit to take control of the game. After seizing the lead early in the third quarter, the Bears never trailed again until the final 38 seconds.
Coming out of the locker room, MSU drove 75 yards on 9 plays to take their first lead of the afternoon when Jacardia Wright’s one-yard TD carry gave the home side a 21-17 lead.
Ian Wagner’s 22-yard field goal late in third quarter drew the Redbirds within one, but the Bears responded on their opening drive of the fourth quarter. Jordan Pachot’s 10-yard TD pass to Raylen Sharpe made it a 28-20 contest with 13:11 to go.
Illinois State chewed up more than seven minutes on its next drive before it tied the game up on a seven-yard run by Mason Blakemore to knot things up, 28-28. The 17-play scoring march was accentuated by a two-point run from Daniel Sobkowicz on the extra point try to pull the visitors even with 5:55 to go.
That’s when the Bears engineered what should have been the game-winning scoring drive. Jacardia Wright chewed up 12 yards on two carries, Jmariyae Robinson had a first-down reception, and Sharpe’s 15-yard pass from Pachot took the ball to the ISU 28. Manning scored on the next play from there to return the lead to Missouri State, 35-28.
The final three minutes of the game put ISU over and left a sour taste in the mouths of the 7,700 Bears faithful who twice celebrated key defensive stops on the Redbirds’ final drive. The decisive, 12-play scoring march included two third-down conversions and the replay-aided fourth-down conversion.
For the game, the Redbirds were 9-of-20 on third down and 6-of-6 on fourth down, including four fourth-down pushes in the final quarter.
Zack Annexstad finished 33-of-49 for 291 yards for the Redbirds who also got 125 yards on 25 carries from Blakemore and 10 catches for 84 yards from top receiver Eddie Kasper.
For the Bears, Pachot was an efficient 24-of-34 for 290 yards and a pair of touchdowns, including two to Sharpe who posted a game-high 105 yards on seven catches. It marked Sharpes’ fifth 100-yard game of the season, just one shy of Ty Scott’s school-record six 100-yard efforts, set in 2021.
Wright had 77 yards on 19 carries to lead Missouri State’s rushing attack.
Defensively, Todric McGee’s 15 total tackles led all players with PJ Hall racking up 13 stops to go with four pass break-ups. Freshman Tim Brantley also had 10 stops, including 2.0 tackles for loss for a rugged MSU defense that made the visitors earn their scoring drives.
Illinois State’s scoring drives on the day were 12, 11, 12, 14, 17 and 12 plays. The Redbirds also punted three times, including two three-and-out series.
In the first half, the Bears twice rallied from seven-point deficits to tie the game. But the Redbirds’ 27-yard field goal by Wagner with 32 seconds left in the opening half pushed the visitors ahead 17-14 at the midway point.
ISU scored on the game’s opening drive with Annexstad connecting with Sobkowicz from 26 yards out to cap a 12-play march just over five minutes into the contest.
The Bears then responded with Sharpe’s first TD catch of the game, a 7-yard touchdown from Pachot on Missouri State’s opening drive that capped an impressive 10-play effort.
ISU pushed ahead 14-7 on a Blakemore TD run late in the first, and MoState tied it up early in the second quarter with its longest drive of the season in terms of time, a 7 minute, 12 second march that covered 90 yards on 14 plays with Wright scoring from one-yard out to make it 14-14.
MoState remains home next week to take on Northern Iowa for its annual Hosting Heroes Day and Senior Day.
