Football Ready for First Road Trip

Football | 9/10/2015 10:24:00 PM

DURANT, Okla. – Southeastern will return to the gridiron looking to even its season record Sept. 12 when it travels to Arkadelphia, Ark., to take on No. 11 ranked Ouachita Baptist at 7 p.m.
 
Saturday's action will also be available for fans to catch the action on the all-new Southeastern Sports Network which features six affiliates throughout the southeastern corner of the state.  Jay Lindly will bring you the action along with Joey McWilliams and Ed Meacham, with the game carried locally in Durant on Mix 96.1 FM or on the web at GoSoutheastern.com.
 
The Savage Storm (0-1, 0-1 GAC) are coming off a narrow loss in the season opener at home to Henderson State, 23-16, in which the team dominated the game statistically, but came up short on the scoreboard.
 
Despite the loss the defense was impressive in its first outing of the year, holding the Reddies to their lowest offensive output since the 2011 season at 272 yards.
 
SE forced four turnovers, two interceptions and two fumbles, but had trouble taking advantage, scoring just nine points off those miscues.
 
The Storm offense was solid with 407 yards of offense that included 295 yards passing by Ryan Polite, but converted just 50 percent on its four trips into the redzone and committed three turnovers of its own.
 
The team was also stricken by the penalty bug, costing itself 107 yards on 13 flags.
 
Southeastern trails in the all-time series with OBU, which is the longest running series for the Storm with its neighbors from Arkansas, 16-31-4, with the Tigers winning the last five and the last SE win coming in 2002.
 
Ouachita Baptist (1-0, 1-0 GAC) comes into the weekend off a 31-24 win over East Central during the opening weekend.
 
The Tigers piled up 434 yards of offense, but their defense allowed ECU to put together 439 yards of total offense, led by a 405 yard passing performance.
 
Kris Oliver ran for 100 yards in the opener and three scores, but the team as a whole was fairly evenly spread between run and pass with 213 total yards on the ground and 221 through the air.
 
Southeastern will also be looking to end a long streak of losses to ranked opponents, dropping 15 in-a-row since a 55-28 win over No. 9 Central Oklahoma during the 2004 season.  The closest contest in that span was against OBU in 2012 when SE fell to the No. 12 Tigers 27-24.