Big Second Lifts White Over Red At SUU Spring Game

    CEDAR CITY, Utah, April 24 – Brad Sorensen completed 7-of-8 passes for 82 yards and a touchdown and Daryl Brown rushed for two more scores as the White Squad took a 31-12 win over the Red in Southern Utah's annual Red/White Scrimmage on Saturday.
    After a mistake-filled first quarter the White scored 19 unanswered second period points, then tacked on a another touchdown in the third period to run out to a 25-0 lead. Brown scored on a pair of 2-yard runs – the second after Rickey Clark intercepted a pass in the end zone and returned it 80 yards to the Red 20 – to put his team up 12-0. Late in the quarter, after an incomplete pass on fourth-and-two from Red's own 29-yard line, redshirt freshman Jacob Allie hit Fesi Sitake on a 17-yard touchdown pass to stake the White to a 19-0 halftime advantage.
    Wilson added his score on a 17-yard run with 5:03 to play in the third before Red quarterback Zack Olsen ran six yards at the end of the period to finally put his team on the board, pulling the Red within 25-6.
    The White team took advantage of another short field early in the fourth quarter to extend the lead to 31-6. Following Olsen's touchdown run the Red team attempted an on-side kick but the ball traveled out of bounds, setting the White up at the Red 46 yard line. Five plays later Sorensen found Kevin Clements on an 11-yard scoring pass. Sorensen is a first-semester transfer from BYU while Clements also joined the team this semester after returning from an LDS church mission last fall.
    Red's final score came when Robbie Ah Sue made a leaping catch for a 40-yard pass from redshirt freshman J.J. Mayer and brought the ball down in the end zone. Ah Sue had dropped a pass in the end zone earlier in the game, but atoned for his mistake with the offensive highlight play of the day.
    “I should have caught that first one, I'm annoyed with myself for dropping it, but it was nice to catch that second one,” he noted.
    SUU Head Coach Ed Lamb, who manned the announcer's booth for the game for the second straight year after handing the coaching duties to his staff and a handful of honorary coaches, said he was pleased with many aspects of the game but disappointed with some of the sloppy play he saw.
    “I liked the way Brad Sorensen came out and established himself early,” Lamb pointed out. “I thought he ran the offense well, he completed 7-of-8 passes, threw a touchdown pass and looked like a leader out there. I also thought we ran the ball pretty efficiently, on both sides.”
    As was anticipated heading into the game, the White squad had more success passing the ball while the Red was more successful on the ground. Sorensen is the team's top passing quarterback, while Olsen, who looks to be the primary backup heading into fall, is the team's top running QB. Olsen ran for 24 yards and completed 4-of-8 passes for 28 yards but threw the game's only interception.
    The White passed for 133 yards and the two touchdowns and ran for 54, losing 18 of those after punter Jens Swenson was sacked after a bad snap. The Red, meanwhile ran for 123 yards and passed for 84.
    The Red's Karl Williams was the top ground-gainer in the game with 38 yards on five carries, while teammate Austin Minefee finished with 34 yards on nine carries. Wilson led the White with 25 yards on two carries but the Red defense held Major Gray and Deckar Alexander – two backs who have been two of the team's three primary backs the past two years – to a combined  17 yards on 11 carries.
    Red linebacker Akeem Anifowoshe led all players with nine tackles, eight solo, including 2.5 tackles for loss, while Matt Holley was second on the red with six stops. Cornerbacks Colin Pretlow and Erron Vonner led the White squad with six tackles each, while Cody Larsen and Dion Turner had five apiece. Larsen had the White's only sack, while Tyson Turley had the Red's only sack.
    “Akeem Anifowoshe really showed up on defense, he made several tackles, he was in the backfield disrupting,” Lamb pointed out. “Cody Larsen had a really productive scrimmage. I thought both of the defensive lines played really physical football – I thought the offensive lines were physical as well. I thought the defensive line did a good job of penetrating and getting into the backfield, putting pressure on the quarterback. Colin Pretlow, Dion Turner, Erron Vonner and Myles Crawford-Harris played well in the secondary. Matt Holley made several plays from his free safety position; that's going to be a great move for him moving over from strong to free safety.”
    The biggest negative for Lamb was the number of penalties. The Red team was whistled nine times for 68 yards and the White was penalized six times for 55 yards.
    “I thought both teams got involved with too many penalties,” Lamb pointed out. “Not so much the hard-playing penalties but there was a lot of trash talking out there that resulted in flags after the whistle and those penalties are inexcusable. That was a junky show from a penalty standpoint and its something we'll have to correct over the summer and make sure that when we go into game one that we don't have that type of bush-league mentality.”

-- SUU --