Making their debut in a new league, the Western Illinois University football team delivered their second-straight win, topping Charleston Southern 31-20 on Saturday afternoon in North Charleston, South Carolina.
“I’m happy for the players, happy for the coaches, happy for the alums and fans who came down to South Carolina to support us,” Western Illinois coach Joe Davis said. “Really, it was all three phases of the game, the offense did enough, the defense did enough to win, and special teams made enough plays to win. We were able to hang on there, so I’m proud of our football program.”
The offense was efficient as Nathan Lamb went 17-23 for 197 yards and a touchdown. Running back Cameren Smith added 101 yards on 25 carries and receiver Eli Aragon added 129 yards on 10 catches for a touchdown.
Defensively, the Leathernecks gave up yards, but for the second-straight week, made the opposing offense have to work for yards and grind out long drives before scoring.
The game started with both defenses making key fourth-down stops on the opposing offenses.
After the Bucs made a big stop on fourth down on WIU’s first drive deep in Charleston Southern territory, the Leatherneck defense made another big stop as Jalen Riven stepped in front of a pass and set the WIU offense up deep in Buc territory.
On the second play of the drive, Smith put Western Illinois on the board, running two yards for a score and a 7-0 lead.
Riven’s interception was not the lone time WIU’s defense made a big play against the pass. Making his first career start, Aidan Harrison picked off a CSU pass and returned it 38 yards for a score and a 14-0 WIU lead.
“Our defense was monumental, getting those two turnovers early,” Davis said. “We still struggled at stopping the run game and explosive plays, but the turnovers were the difference. I think this is the first game we won the turnover battle, 2-1, and both turnovers we caused resulted in points. It was massive, I’m so happy for our defense.”
Charleston Southern kept the game close, scoring two touchdowns to cut the WIU lead to 14-13. But the Leathernecks went into halftime with all the momentum as Lamb led a seven-play, 65-yard drive that lasted 1:47. Lamb capped the two-minute drill with a 22-yard scoring pass to Matthew Henry, giving WIU a 21-13 lead at the break.
In the second half, it was a new-look Leatherneck offense. After CSU bottled up the ground game in the opener 30 minutes, Western Illinois let Smith and the offensive line dictate play. The result was successful as WIU had 25 carries for 120 yards after intermission.
“We said at halftime, Cam Smith did not have enough touches, they sort of shut us out in the second quarter before our two-minute drive,” Davis said. “We had to get Cam going in the second half and to do that was huge for our offense and our program.”
With Smith doing the bulk of the work, the Leatherneck offense took their first drive of the second half right down the field, going 75 yards on eight plays. Lamb would hit Aragon for a score and a 28-13 lead. Antonio Chadha extended the lead with a 48-yard field goal, giving Western Illinois a 31-13 lead with 14:04 left.
And whether early or late, WIU came up big when it needed plays to be made, on offense, defense, and special teams.
