West Virginia State Yellow Jackets Defeat Urbana 18-13 for first Mountain East Conference Win

COURTESY WVSU YELLOW JACKETS ATHLETICS

URBANA, Ohio -- Matt Kinnick hit Tyler Carillo with two touchdown passes and Chance Suwai recovered a fumble in the endzone to lead the Yellow Jackets to an 18-13 win at Urbana Saturday afternoon in football action.

WVSU freshman running back Tevin Brown rushed for 132 yards on 26 carries while the Yellow Jacket defense held the Blue Knights to just 27 yards on the ground.

"We want to be a physical team and run the ball and stop the other team's running game," WVSU Head Coach Jon Anderson said. "Today we were able to do both of those things."

The Yellow Jackets took an early lead scoring twice in the first five minutes.
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Kinnick got things rolling by engineering an eight play, 63-yard drive on the first WVSU possession. A 17-yard toss to Tyler Carillo gave the Yellow Jackets a 6-0 lead with 10:30 left in the opening period.

On Urbana's ensuing possession linebacker Dennis Gardeck stripped the ball in the backfield and Chance Suwai recoved in the endzone to make the score 12-0 at the 10:15 mark.

The quick start was "something we wanted to do," Anderson said.

"We set the tempo for the game right away," he said.

Once they took the lead the Yellow Jackets were able to stay in control of the clock with a revived running attack.

"We got the running game back on track," Anderson said. "Which is a huge credit to our offensive line."

After throwing for 406 yards last week Kinnick finished Saturday's contest 12-of-23 for 117 yards with WVSU getting 159 on the ground as Dionta Brown added 44 yards on 12 carries.

Thanks to the ground game the Yellow Jackets were able to finish with over a 10 minute time of possession advantage. That includes a third period where WVSU controlled the ball for an amazing 13:54.

Kinnick hit Carillo again, this time from 5 yards out, with 8:40 left in the third to cap a 14-play, 70-yard, drive that ate up 6:13 on the clock and made a late Urbana score meaningless.

It was the first Mountain East Conference win for WVSU.

"That is our expectation every week," Anderson said."I'm very happy for our guys."

The Yellow Jackets host West Virginia Wesleyan at 1:30 Saturday in this year's Homecoming contest.

COURTESY WEST VIRGINIA STATE UNIVERSITY ATHLETIC MEDIA RELATIONS