Box Score
CLINTON, Miss. – LC senior quarterback Ben McLaughlin had thrown three interceptions. But his chance for redemption at Mississippi College came in the game's final minute, and McLaughlin made the most of it.

With the Wildcats trailing 42-38, McLaughlin capped a 6-play, 61-yard drive by hitting D'Mario Parker in the back corner of the endzone giving the Wildcats a 45-42 lead with 24 seconds left. The defense held from there and the Wildcats gained their first win of the season to improve to 1-0 in the American Southwest Conference, 1-2 overall.

“I made some bad decisions and put our defense in some bad spots,” said McLaughlin who finished the game 26-for-43 for 346 yards and four touchdowns along with the three interceptions. “But we never give up, we always believe in ourselves and we finally got our first win.”

This game litterally put the “wild” in Wildcats as LC and MC combined for seven touchdowns in the fourth quarter. The LC defense, which held the Choctaws to only seven points in the first half as the Wildcats built a 24-7 lead, found itself virtually unable to stop the MC offense in the second half.

When running back Brian Whitehurst scored from one-yard out to cap a 10-play, 65-yard drive, the Choctaws held a 42-38 lead with 1:14 left.

But a short kickoff gave LC great field position on their own 40-yard line, and that's when McLaughlin went to work. Finding Parker in single coverage, McLaughlin hit the junior for two big plays to move deep into MC terriorty. McLaughlin then completed two passes to Jordan Rideaux to move to the MC 19 before McLaughlin found Parker for what proved to be the winning touchdown. After the game, LC coach Dennis Dunn said that he had let McLaughlin call his own plays in that final drive.

“(The two-minute drill) is something we work on every day, and he called that whole series.” Dunn said. “I told him right after the kickoff, Ben we do it everyday – let's go do it, and sure enough he led us down there and we got the big catch in the end zone by D'Mario.”

Parker's success on the final drive was greatly set up by the performance of LC's other two receivers. The record-setting Rideaux had another big game finishing with 11 catches for 88 yards, and junior Darnell Williams continues to emerge as a force. Williams had 248 all-purpose yards, including a 63-yard touchdown reception from McLaughlin in the second quarter, an 89-yard kickoff return in the fourth quarter, and an 83-yard reception again from McLaughlin which at the time gave LC a 38-35 lead with 5:00 left in the game.

McLaughlin said after the game that MC's decision to cover Williams with two defenders in the final series opened things up for Parker and Rideaux. For ASC defensive coordinators, it now appears they will have to pick their poison when it comes to deciding how to defend three extremely explosive LC receivers.

That said, McLaughlin and his receivers may not have even been in the position to win the game had it not been for a major defensive play by sophmore safety Reggie Calhoun. With just over six minutes left in the game, and MC leading 35-31, McLaughlin was picked off for the third time by MC's Jeremy Bertrand who returned the ball to the Choctaws' 41. On the next play, Whitehurst broke a huge run, taking the ball to the LC 2-yard line where Calhoun met him with a big hit, popping the ball loose as sophomore Brodrick Frederick fell on it for LC. Later, Dunn called it possibly, “the play of the game” as it led to Williams' 83-yard touchdown on the ensuing possession.

In terms of LC's defense, it was certainly a tale of two halves. After giving up just seven points and 168 combined yards in the first half, the Wildcats yielded 38 points in the second, including 31 points in the fourth quarter alone. MC finished with 511 total yards – 318 of those on the ground as Whitehurst, who came into the game to replace the injured Austin Divinity, rushed 22 times for 161 yards and four touchdowns, all of that in the last two quarters.

Even so, one player who did stand out for the LC defense was sophomore linebacker Nate Janzen. With 9 solo tackles and 13 assisted, Janzen's combined 22 tackles was just four off the ASC record.

It was also a tale of two halves for the LC running game. In the first half, LC was able to control the tempo of the game by rotating Daron Bartholomew and Chad Hindman as they combined for 103 yards on 18 carries. But LC would get only 39 more yards from those two and CerDerrick Tyson in the second half.

Those two factors and LC's inability to sustain offensive drives in the second half allowed MC to dominate the third quarter and finally take the lead for the first time, 31-28, on quarterback Tommy Reyer's 16-yard run with 10:33 to play. Reyer finished 20-of-34 for 193 yards passing and ran nine times for 60 yards including that touchdown.

But that's when the fun really started as the Wildcats and Choctaws traded touchdowns for the rest of the quarter.

For the Wildcats, this game may not have qualified as “must-win”, but it certainly had the potential to determine much for the rest of the season. After two tough non-conference losses, the Wildcats knew that another loss in this conference opener would have been extremely tough to bounce back from.

“You never want to put the whole season on one game,” McLaughlin said. “But we felt if we did lose this game, our ability to control our desitinly was out of our hands. As far as that's concerned it was big.”

It also gives a much different feel for LC's next game, a matchup next Saturday, Oct. 2nd, at home against Mary Hardin-Baylor at 11 a.m. MHB is coming off a huge win over rival Hardin Simmons, 42-28. The Cru is ranked No. 5 in the latest D3football.com poll while the Cowboys were ranked No. 8. LC's win over MC, who fell to 2-2 on the season, at the very least gives a little added meaning to next Saturday's matchup with one of the top teams in the country.

“It's a whole different mindset, a whole different mentality,” Dunn said of the win. “Now you have the whole mental part of what winning is. We feel very good about where we're heading, but we have a tough opponent next week. We'll enjoy this game tonight and then go to work tomorrow on Mary Hardin-Baylor.”