Bears rally for much-needed win
Staring a third straight loss to start the season right in the face Saturday, Mercer head coach Bobby Lamb let his players know at halftime he wasn’t pleased with their play against Tennessee Tech.
That message came through loud and clear.
The Bears rebounded from a sluggish first half and dominated the Golden Eagles to pull out a 34-27 win. Mercer (1-2) is off this week before jumping back into Southern Conference play Oct. 1 at VMI
“We needed that win in the worse kind of way. People say, ‘Tennessee Tech this, Tennessee Tech that,’ ” Lamb said. “We lost to Tennessee Tech last year. They’ve got a good football team. ... They’ve got some quality players that can make some plays. So it was a big win for us simply for the fact that we needed it sitting here at 0-2.
“We needed to get to 1-2, and we’re going into the open week. We can make some adjustments and changes in the open week, get healed up and be ready for that stretch run in the conference.”
Mercer (1-2) finished with 401 yards of offense and forced four turnovers, including three in the second half, while turning the ball over just once. The Bears picked up their pace in the second half and had 51 plays for 256 yards in the final two quarters after struggling to 145 yards on 22 plays in the first half.
Senior quarterback John Russ completed 23-of-35 passes for 259 yards and two touchdowns to sophomore tight end Walker while rushing 10 times for 46 yards and two more scores.
“This is very important,” Russ said. “This is what we said, it’s the start of our season. We’ve got to kind of forget those two games that we played in the beginning. We’ve got to reel off nine wins here. So it was extremely important to get that first win, and hopefully the momentum will start for these next eight games.”
The Bears’ defense played a big part in getting that momentum jump-started. Mercer allowed 165 yards on 38 plays in the first half but only 92 yards on 26 plays after halftime. The Golden Eagles had minus-14 yards in the fourth quarter.
Mercer’s defense had six sacks and made big play after big play in key spots in the second half.
Trailing 27-24 in the fourth quarter, Stephen Houzah came up with Mercer’s first interception of the season to set up Russ’ go-ahead score from 1 yard with 8:04 to play. Tripp Patterson ended Tennessee Tech’s next drive with a sack, and Mercer answered with Cole Fisher’s 49-yard field goal for a 34-27 lead with 5:02 left.
Safety Zach Jackson then forced a fumble with less than five minutes to play as the Bears were holding on to their seven-point lead. Mercer’s offense took over with 3:57 to play and ran out the clock for the win.
Jackson had two sacks, while Patterson, Kyle Trammell, Will Coneway and Tosin Aguebor each had one.
“This is a big momentum shift for us,” Jackson said. “We knew how big this game was coming into it. We knew it was a must win, and I love how our guys played on offense and defense.”
This story was originally published September 18, 2016 at 7:00 PM with the headline "Bears rally for much-needed win."