ALVA, Okla. — The Arkansas Tech football team was dominant from the outset on the road at Northwestern Oklahoma on Saturday afternoon and cruised to a 44-21 win.
A big part of the dominant performance came on the defensive end as the Wonder Boys' defense was directly responsible for the first two touchdowns of the game. The first of those came in the form of a recovered fumble by Israel Whitmore as Northwestern Oklahoma had a bad snap in their wildcat formation on their initial possession of the game.
Whitmore's recovery set Tech up at the NWOSU 45-yardline for the Wonder Boys' first offensive possession of the game. With plus field position, the Wonder Boys needed just five plays to find the endzone as former Ranger and current Tech quarterback Ethan Everson connected with tight end Dayton Keller from 11 yards out.
After possession turned back to NWOSU, the Wonder Boys quickly went up 14-0 as Diego Sanchez had a 62-yard pick-six.
Leading by a pair of touchdowns with just under four minutes having been played, the Wonder Boys got the ball back with 9:33 in the first and proceeded to take the air out of the ball with a methodical 13-play drive that covered 72 yards and ate up over seven and a half minutes. Unfortunately, the Wonder Boys were forced to settle for 25-yard field goal to take a 17-0 lead. Overall, however, the drive was impressive as each play ahead of the field goal was a running play as the Wonder Boys began to establish their commitment to the run.
As the game carried over to the second quarter, the Rangers showed some signs of life and scored a pair of touchdowns about three minutes apart to suddenly pull within three points of the Wonder Boys.
Despite that surge, the Wonder Boys did not allow the Rangers to get any closer and on their next drive recaptured the momentum as the eight-play drive was capped by a thrilling 32-yard touchdown by Luke Gall.
