Black Hills State football fell 28-27 after a hot start in Saturday's Heroes Day game against Western Colorado.

The Yellow Jackets (5-2, 3-2 RMAC) totaled 362 total yards of offense in the game and converted three of four fourth down tries.

Cameron Goods was unstoppable on the ground, rushing 11 times for 97 yards and a touchdown.

Nolan Susel ran for two touchdowns on ten attempts for 40 yards.

Jamin Wurtz had a team-high 43 receiving yards on four catches, while Hasaan led with six catches, totaling 22 yards. Harold Dobbin hauled in the lone receiving touchdown on the game, a four-yard catch in his only reception of the day.

Defensively, Ryder Blair, Cooper Brown and Nikolas Arnold each tallied a sack. The team had five pass breakups while Doodles Quinones had his first interception of the season.

Wind was a factor early in the game for both offenses as they were each slow to get rolling. A couple drives into the game Eben took a chance downfield, but throwing into the wind, the pass was knocked down in the air and intercepted by WCU.

The BHSU defense was in control early, though, holding WCU to negative yards on the first two drives. Sacks from Brown and Blair following the Mountaineer interception led to another defensive stop that gave the Yellow Jacket offense the ball back.

On the ensuing drive, BHSU picked up what would be the first first-down in the game with under five minutes left in the opening quarter. That drive eventually led to a 42-yard touchdown run from Goods to open the scoring and give the Yellow Jackets a 7-0 lead with 2:02 left in first.

BHSU held the WCU offense to 15 total yards in the first and carried a 7-0 lead into the second.

As the field turned around in the second quarter with WCU now throwing into the wind, the Mountaineer quarterback threw an interception in the end zone, picked off by Doodles Quinones to end the WCU threat.

That BHSU turnover led to another touchdown after a pair of big Pressley runs got the Yellow Jackets deep into WCU territory. At the Western 3-yard line, Susel punched it in to extend to a 14-0 lead with 8:31 left in the first half.

Another WCU punt forced by the Yellow Jacket defense gave the offense the ball back. Facing 4th-and-7 at the Western 9-yard line, Eben drew WCU offsides with a hard count to instead bring up 4th-and-2 at the 4-yard line.

The next play call was a direct snap to Susel who faked a run before flipping a forward pass over the line to Dobbin in the end zone for the touchdown, making it 21-0 with 1:51 left in half.

WCU found the end zone with 1:03 left and then fumbled the point-after try, but the kicker picked it up and found a lineman in the endzone for a successful two-point conversion. That drew the score to 21-8 which would hold into halftime.

Out of the locker room, WCU scored on their opening drive, making it 21-15 with 12:44 in the third.

WCU drove down field again later in the third, but the BHSU defense held them to a field goal try. With some help from the wind, the Mountaineers missed the field goal to keep the score at 21-15 with 5:36 to go in the third.

Western wasn't done, though, moving ahead with a touchdown at 14:17 in the fourth to give the Mountaineers their first lead of game, 22-21.

BHSU followed that up with a long scoring drive to go back on top using a key 4th-down conversion to get a first down at the WCU 5-yard line before Susel punched it in from to hold a 27-22 lead with 8:44 remaining.

WCU answered back with a scoring drive of their own later in the fourth, however, moving ahead 28-27 before time expired to seal the game.

Up Next
The Yellow Jackets travel to No. 10/19 Colorado Mines in Golden, Colo. for a 12 p.m. kickoff on Saturday, Oct. 22.