GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — Colorado Mesa saw Black Hills State kicker Coleman Chapman snatch away an RMAC victory at Stocker Stadium on Saturday.
His 50-yard field goal with one second remaining erased the Mavericks' late lead, handing CMU a 25-23 loss.
"There's gonna be a handful of plays that we look back on and know that we needed to execute better and were unable to do that," CMU head coach Miles Kochevar said. ""There's a lot to the lead-up to the end of the game. I think our message will be we've got to learn from those early in the game, we've got to be able to win field position, battle early, be able to create some momentum in different ways. When you're always having to go 80 yards, 90 yards, it puts the offense in a bad spot, so we've got to get them some better field position and do that with special teams.
"Ultimately it comes down to playing smarter football, understanding the situation that we're in. There's going to be five to six different scenarios throughout that whole game that led up to us not being able to pull this one off."
After Gavin Herberg directed a 6-play, 61-yard drive in 1 minute, 33 seconds in a wild final four minutes to set up Henry Katelman's 36-yard field goal, the Mavericks were only 38 seconds away from their third straight victory, leading 23-22.
Instead, Ben Sargent's kickoff went out of bounds, giving the Yellow Jackets the ball at the 35, and, out of timeouts, they went to their short passing game, moving the ball to the CMU 33 with 6.1 seconds left.
Chapman's 50-yarder slid easily inside the right upright with only one second remaining. The Yellow Jackets were flagged for excessive celebration, setting the kickoff back to the 20. Kash Bradley was dragged down at the 43-yard line on the return, ending the game.
Leslie Richardson directed a touchdown drive earlier in the fourth quarter, hitting Trevin Edwards in the back of the end zone from 30 yards out. Edwards wrestled the ball away from his defender as the two went up together for the ball. Up 20-19, the Mavericks opted to go for the 2-point conversion, but Richardson couldn't get away from the rush and was sacked.
Chapman kicked a 36-yard field goal to put the 'Jackets back on top 22-20, leading to Herberg's final scoring drive.
He completed passes to Keenan Brown for 13 yards and David O'Connell for 39 and the Mavericks ran the ball to the 19. Black Hills State burned its final two timeouts to preserve as much time as possible for its winning drive.
An 84-yard touchdown pass from Herberg to Keenan Brown opened the scoring on the Mavs' second drive of the game.
Down 10-7 in the second quarter, Ryan Hollingsworth made a terrific catch on fourth-and-three and turned it into a 43-yard gain to the Black Hills 1. It was the sophomore's first career catch. The ball was thrown slightly behind Hollingsworth, who was crossing over the middle, and glanced off his hands. He snatched the ball out of the air and nearly scored, trying to reach out and hit the pylon, but was ruled out of bounds.
That ruling came back to haunt the Mavericks, who were turned away four times.
A delay of game penalty pushed the ball back to the 6, but a pair of runs got it back to the 1. Herberg tried to sneak it over, but was ruled about an inch short of the goal line on third down, and Hurd was stopped at the line of scrimmage on fourth down.
Jason Thome, though, got the ball right back for CMU with his fourth interception of the season after the Mavericks got a good rush on quarterback Tanner Clarkson.
Herberg scrambled for 24 yards and hit Edwards and Noah Sarria on short gainers, then rewarded Hollingsworth for his big catch on the previous drive by finding him in the end zone from 9 yards out, putting CMU up 14-10 with 7:34 to play in the second quarter.
Clarkson directed an 8-play, 70-yard touchdown drive in the final 4:11 of the half, with the Mavericks missing some key tackles, including on TJ Chukwurah's 36-yard score, who shook two defenders at the 15 to take a 16-14 halftime lead after Chapman's point-after kick was blocked by JaCari Williams.
Despite slightly outgaining Black Hills 419 yards to 398, the Mavs fell 2-2, 1-1 in RMAC play. With Herberg completing 13 of 21 passes for 249 yards and a pair of touchdowns, the Mavs gained 347 of those yards through the air. The running game has yet to take hold consistently, with 72 yards on 22 attempts.
Mesa had the ball for less than two minutes the entire third quarter. The Yellow Jackets scored only three points on drives of 4:46 and 8:55, respectively, keeping CMU's offense off the field. Mesa's lone possession of the quarter was only three plays, totaling 4 yards in 1:19.
Brown finished with four catches for 152 yards and one touchdown, Hollingsworth had two for 52 yards and a score, and Edwards caught three passes for 44 yards and one TD.
Defensively, Bradley had nine solo tackles and five assists, Williams made five solo tackles and blocked the PAT and Liban Shongolo recovered one fumble and was in on seven total tackles.
The Mavericks head back on the road, taking on rival Western Colorado at 1 p.m. on Sept. 30 in Gunnison before returning to Stocker to face Colorado School of Mines on Oct. 7.
