The Harding football team stared an opening game loss dead in the eyes last Saturday and came away unscathed.
After giving up a two-score lead in the second half, the Bisons came through late when junior cornerback Corey Bassett blocked a potential game-winning field goal and sophomore running back Zach Shelley ran in an overtime touchdown to narrowly defeat Oklahoma Baptist University (OKBU) 20-19.
Originally listed as a 30-plus point favorite over Great American Conference (GAC) newcomers OKBU, the Bisons had to scratch and claw the whole afternoon to finally get past their scrappy western neighbors. Although it was not a game many anticipated being so hard fought, head coach Ronnie Huckeba said that battling like that and coming away with a victory this early in the year will help his team in the long run.
“I think it can be really good for us,” Huckeba said. “We had a whole lot of players who got their first real starting experience and extensive game experience, and we are absolutely confident that we are going to be a better football team because of what happened on Saturday. It exposed some areas that we definitely need to work on; and it’s not a lack of ability issue, it’s more technical things that we need to correct to click better on offense and defense.”
Junior quarterback Park Parish, who went down with a wrist injury in his first start before returning to help lead the Bisons to the win, said that Saturday was a humbling experience, but at the end of the day getting a win is all that matters.
“(OKBU) definitely gave us a scare,” Parish said. “We went in a little over-confident, but we stepped up when our backs were against the wall at the end and found a way to win it. It was a wakeup call for sure. I’m just excited to be moving on to Southern Nazarene at 1-0 rather than 0-1.”
The Bisons now turn their attention to tomorrow’s home opener against Southern Nazarene University (SNU) and will look to take the lessons they learned from last Saturday with them. Perhaps the biggest of those lessons will be to not overlook their opponent. SNU is riding a 27-game losing streak entering tomorrow’s contest, but Huckeba said that the Crimson Storm has the team’s full attention.
“Our job is to do the very best we can, respect every opponent and expect a dogfight, because any game we play in this conference can be a dogfight,” Huckeba said. “We’re not that much better than anybody else so we have to take care of business.”
The Bisons open the gates of First Security Stadium for the first time this fall tomorrow at 6 p.m. against SNU.
