Tulane jumped out to a 10-0 lead in the first quarter and staved off a Tulsa comeback to earn a 38-26 win over the Golden Hurricane, in front of 27,417 fans at Yulman Stadium, Saturday in New Orleans.
Unfortunately, this game went much like the entire Tulsa season has gone. Tulsa has now trailed at the end of the first quarter in eight games this season, and has been held scoreless in the first quarter five times.
The Golden Hurricane took a 13-10 lead with 4:30 left in the second quarter, but then fell behind 24-16 by halftime. Tulsa put together another little run to pull within five-points of Tulane in the second-half at 31-26, but a Green Wave touchdown with 4:53 remaining in the fourth quarter gave Tulane the 12-point victory.
The Hurricane scored 6-of-8 times in the red zone, but four of those only went for field goals. In fact, Tulsa kicker Jacob Rainey, who has been struggling a lot this season, was perfect on every kick. He connected on Tulsa’s four field goal attempts, covering 40, 32, 37 and 38 yards, and was 2-for-2 on point after kicks.
Tulsa gained 398 total yards on offense, with 270 coming through the air and 128 yards on the ground. Quarterback Zach Smith completed 17-of-33 passes and one touchdown, while Shamari Brooks led the Hurricane in rushing with 65 yards and Keylon Stokes had a team-high 78 yards receiving.
Tulane improved to 6-3 overall (3-2 American Athletic Conference), while Tulsa dropped to 2-7 (0-5 AAC) on the season. The Golden Hurricane will be home at H.A. Chapman Stadium Friday night for a nationally-televised ESPN2 game against the 7-1 UCF Knights. Kickoff is scheduled for 6 p.m.
ORU SOCCER REIGNS
The No. 24 ranked Oral Roberts men’s soccer team took the Summit League regular season title after a 3-0 win at Omaha on Saturday. If the Golden Eagles win or tie against Western Illinois, they will claim the No. 1 seed in the Summit League Tournament. ORU will host Western Illinois this Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Case Soccer Complex.
Meanwhile, The ORU women’s soccer team defeated Purdue Fort Wayne, 2-0, Sunday, to clinch the No. 3 seed in the 2019 Summit League Championships in Brookings, South Dakota on Nov. 7-9.
Denver secured the No. 1 seed after recording a 7-0-1 conference record with 22 points, the most points the Pioneers have earned in Summit League play in program history. Host South Dakota State tallied a 6-1-1 league mark to earn the No. 2 seed. After missing last year’s championships, ORU earned the No. 3 seed, while North Dakota snuck in at the No. 4 seed.
Thursday’s first match pits Denver against North Dakota at 3 p.m., followed by South Dakota State and Oral Roberts at 6 p.m. The winners of Thursday’s matches will play in Saturday’s championship match at noon with the winner earning an automatic bid to the NCAA College Cup.
BUSY SPORTS NIGHT
Call it terrible scheduling, or just horrible coincidence, but this Friday night, November 8, is an extremely busy sports night locally.
At ORU, there is a 5 p.m. women’s basketball game and a volleyball match on campus, and then the men’s basketball team plays at 7:30 p.m. At the same time across town, Tulsa has a home football game beginning at 6 p.m., while there are several high school football games around the area. This has the potential of spreading the local sports fans real thin, and attendance at every one of these games will suffer.
In fact, I’ll be doing double duty. I will do the P.A. announcing for the ORU volleyball match and then rush down to Summit Park on South Garnett at 141st Street, to do the P.A. announcing for the Summit Christian Academy home football game.