{"id":16559,"date":"2021-11-18T17:28:52","date_gmt":"2021-11-18T23:28:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/?p=16559"},"modified":"2021-12-09T22:12:15","modified_gmt":"2021-12-10T04:12:15","slug":"harding-bisons-defeat-arkansas-tech-in-shutout-win-gac-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/2021\/11\/18\/harding-bisons-defeat-arkansas-tech-in-shutout-win-gac-championship\/","title":{"rendered":"Harding Bisons defeat Arkansas Tech in shutout, win GAC championship"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Photo by Madison Meyer<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Harding University football team played in a game against Arkansas Tech on Nov. 13 in Russellville, Arkansas, resulting in a Bison win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Harding Bisons shutout Arkansas Tech 31-0, making the Bisons the Great American Conference (GAC) champions. This is Harding\u2019s fifth overall conference championship and second GAC title. The Harding Bisons last received this title in 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senior running back Cole Chancey scored the first touchdown of the game on a 5-yard run \u2014 the only touchdown of the first half. In the second half, Harding scored on each of its four possessions. Chancey was responsible for two of the touchdowns, with another from freshman running back Jhalen Spicer for Harding\u2019s final score. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was filled with nothing but gratitude to be a part of a team like this one,\u201d Spicer said. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t have gotten to the endzone without the help of the 10 guys in front of me. They paved the way. Scoring touchdowns is always exciting, but it\u2019s even more exciting going to the sideline and seeing how excited my guys are for me. I couldn\u2019t ask to be a part of a better team.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the game, Chancey rushed for 210 yards, surpassing the 1,000-yard mark for the season. Chancey is now Harding\u2019s first running back to go over 1,000 yards in three different seasons. Additionally, Chancey broke former quarterback Park Parish\u2019s single-season touchdown record, comparing Chancey\u2019s 23 this season to Parish\u2019s 21 in 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chancey said the GAC championship win was a great feeling and accomplishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJust seeing all the work the team [and] coaches have put in come to fruition is awesome,\u201d Chancey said. \u201cThis is great, but it is just a stepping stone to what we want to do together. We are far from satisfied.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Head coach Paul Simmons led his team to victory in his 50th game and now has a 40-10 career with Harding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI tell you what \u2014 so many emotions right now,\u201d Simmons said in a post-game interview. \u201cI just think about how proud I am of the seniors. We\u2019re sitting there one and one after losing down [Southeastern University]. And boy, we had a long road ahead of us, and they\u2019ve responded unbelievably \u2026 they deserve to have something special happen to them, and they made it happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harding (10-1) earned the No. 2 seed in the NCAA DII Super Region 3 and will host No. 7 seed Washburn (9-2) on Nov. 20 at 1 p.m. The winner will take on the winner of the No.3 Northwest Missouri State versus No. 6 Central Washington game on Nov. 27. The game will be played at the location of the higher seed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photo by Madison Meyer The Harding University football team played in a game against Arkansas Tech on Nov. 13 in Russellville, Arkansas, resulting in a Bison win. The Harding Bisons…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15184,"featured_media":16560,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15184"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16559"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16561,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16559\/revisions\/16561"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}