The first half of Thursday night’s season opener for the Lincoln University football team is one they’d like to forget.
Three turnovers that turned into three Clarion touchdowns resulted in a 30-20 loss for the Lions, spoiling the home debut of new head coach Frank Turner.
“We dug ourselves a hole,” Turner said. “Turnovers, penalties, we shot ourselves in the foot on special teams. We played better in the second half but couldn’t overcome the obstacles we created for ourselves.”
“For us, it comes down to discipline,” said sophomore quarterback Isaiah Freeman, who completed 19 of 38 passes for 248 yards and three touchdowns. “We’ve got a lot of young guys that haven’t played on this stage yet. Getting guys acclimated to this level; you could see it in the second half. To use a basketball term, we just had to see the ball go in the net.”
Before any shots fell, the Golden Eagles did most of the scoring. Interceptions by Shane Kemper and Dillon Tingle gave Clarion good field position, leading to touchdown connections between quarterback Will Alexander and receivers Tony Powell and Andy Martin. Clarion’s other first-half touchdown came on a Lincoln fumble at their three-yard-line that defensive end Brady McKee pounced on in the end zone.
Freeman engineered a late first-half drive that accounted for Lincoln’s first score, an 18-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Dah’Mear Triplett, who made a circus, toe-dragging catch in the right corner of the end zone. Triplett caught seven passes for 85 yards for the evening.
Clarion came out in the second half with a six-yard touchdown run from Khalil Owens to make it 27-6. Still, Freeman responded on the next possession with a 68-yard bomb to Malachi Langley, who outran his defender by several steps to catch the ball in stride.
After Andrew Kurtas booted a 30-yard field goal for the Golden Eagles, Freeman led Lincoln on a 98-yard drive to start the fourth quarter, culminating in another touchdown pass to Langley, this time on a 34-yard screen pass.
Clarion ran out 8 ½ minutes of the final quarter, and Lincoln got the ball back too late to mount another charge.
“We can’t harp on what we did; we just have to fix it,” Turner said. “We are a good football team, and these guys understand that. We just have to do better.”
The bright side was an enthusiastic sellout crowd at Lions Stadium, something that wasn’t lost on the coach and the quarterback.
“Night games are always great here,” Turner said. “The atmosphere was great, and the crowd really got into it when we made that run in the second half.”
“We have a whole new team and whole new coaching staff, so everyone wanted to see what the hype was about,” Freeman added. “We had a full stadium on a Thursday night; that’s incredible. They’re going to keep coming out and supporting. We’ve just got to put on a show for them.”
Lincoln hits the road for games at Post and defending CIAA champ Fayetteville State before returning home Saturday, Sept. 23, for another night game against Johnson C. Smith.
