After an embarrassing loss last week to 0-3 Central Oklahoma, the Washburn Ichabods found a way to redeem themselves.

On Family Day at Yager Stadium, the Washburn Ichabods held strong against Southwest Baptist University with a 42-14 victory.

Washburn took to the board first as sophomore quarterback Mitch Buhler passed to junior tight end Tore’ Hurst for a 13-yard TD pass.  Southwest Baptist countered soon after with a 9-yard touchdown reception by Just Duhaney, tying the game at 7-7.

The Ichabods pushed ahead 21-7 as junior running back Hayden Groves and Hurst both scored a touchdown.  Freshman receiver Jordan Hart soon followed suit as he took a 47-yard pass from backup quarterback Joel Piper in for a touchdown to bring the Ichabods lead to 28-7 at the half.

The third quarter remained idle as both Washburn and Southwest Baptist  held each other offensively for all moments of play.

Washburn came back strong at the start of the fourth as redshirt freshman, Kameron Stewart, took possession and ran in a 2-yard run putting the Ichabods at 35-7 against Southwest Baptist.

Stewart broke the boundary this season as the first Ichabod football player to go over the 100 yard mark. A feat, not only remarkable for a freshman, but also impressive as his 104 yards were on 20 carries.

“It’s key to our offense and Kameron did a great job,” said Craig Schurig, Washburn head coach. “We should be consistently getting down those yards.”

Stewart was called upon after starting running back Donnie Lockhart and second team running back Groves both went down with injuries. The quiet-spoken Stewart seemed surprised at being the first to break the century mark.

“We always talk in practice about being the next man up and I just tried to do that,” said Stewart. “I feel like I have to go out and do what coach expects of me. I have to go out and do what the team expects of me, every game. No exceptions.”

Southwest Baptist answered early in the fourth quarter to bring the score to 35-14. But redshirt freshman receiver  Connor Crimmins snagged a 19-yard touchdown pass pushing the score to 42-14 as Washburn got its sixth win over Southwest Baptist University.  

The Washburn coaching staff was happy with their team’s fourth quarter performance, one of the team’s strongest throughout the entire game.

“I was very happy with how we played in the fourth quarter,” said Schurig. “I was pleased with the balance we had between our offense and defense. The defensive line held their own against Southwest Baptist strongly and did a great job shutting down their base offense.”

Schurig was not the only one who thought his team played much better against SBU than UCO.

“I also thought this game went really well,” said Buhler. “We came out strong as a team and ran the ball very well on our offensive end.”

Buhler, who struggled at times in last week’s loss at UCO,  was proud of how the team has improved over time.

“We were a lot stronger on our offense today and it was a great emphasis overall being able to move the ball as well as we did,” said Buhler. “The main concept of our offense is our movement down the field so we will definitely continue pushing this hard in our next game.”

Washburn (4-1, 4-1 MIAA) held the Bearcats to only 145 yards in the game while racking up 408 total yards. The No. 20 ranked Bods travel this weekend to Jefferson City, Mo., to play Lincoln University (0-5, 0-5 MIAA).