The Ichabods may have won their Sept. 17 Family Day football game against the Lindenwood Lions, but it was a last minute save that kept them from the clutches of defeat. The Washburn Ichabods ended up winning 34-29.

During the first quarter of the game, the Ichabods were down 0-7 to the Lions, but Jake Horner’s 62-yard touchdown pass with 6:07 left on the clock began the Ichabod’s rise to victory.

“It was really exciting, I’m happy I could get the game tied back up and keep us in it. And then all of my teammates stepped up and did great things the whole first half,” said Horner.

At the end of the first half, the Ichabods led 34-13 after two touchdowns from Bryce Chavis. After making up the defecit, the players were driven to win and didn’t show any signs of letting up.

“It was just executing; we just had to execute our plays right,” said Chavis. “We knew if we executed today, whoever got the ball would make it happen. It happened to be me a couple times, but our offense played pretty good.”

But when the Ichabods returned from the locker rooms for the third quarter, Lindenwood shut them down, holding them at 34 points.

In the fourth quarter, Lindenwood ended up scoring two touchdowns, the extra point and a field goal to put them at 29 points. This score left Lindenwood a single touchdown away from victory; a touchdown they almost got during the last play of the game before Jace Williams intercepted their attempt at a touchdown pass with a single second left on the clock.

“It was an interesting game,” said Horner. “A tale of two halves, but we did what we had to do to get the win. We knew that this was a must win game if we wanted to accomplish our goals going forward. It’s just a step in the right direction as far as we look at it.”

The contrast between the first and second halves can not only be seen on the scoreboards, but also in the final yardage. At the end of the game, Lindenwood had 261 passing yards with a gain of 201 rushing yards to Washburn’s 247 passing yards and 168 rushing yards.

“I was real pleased in the first half; I’m glad that we won,” said Head Coach Craig Schurig. “I was disappointed in how we played in the second half, and I’ll take blame for that. We got a little cautious on the offensive side, but we had enough in us to get it done, so I’m proud of the way our guys finished it. Lindenwood did a good job coming back so we’ve got to give them credit.”

The Ichabods will be playing their next game of the season against Nebraska-Kearney Sept. 24 at 2 p.m. in Kearney, Nebraska. Although the Ichabods had a poor showing in the second half, Schurig remains optamistic about their upcoming games.

“Would have liked to have kept the pedal down in the second half and keep going, but we backed off and that wasn’t smart,” said Schurig. “Obviously we’ve got to keep getting better and we feel like we have a really good team, but each week we’ve got to improve. We have a couple big games coming up, and we hope to put in all four quarters next time.”