The Western Colorado Mountaineers aren’t done climbing.
Trailing Lone Star Conference champion Central Washington by 11 points midway through the second quarter, Western Colorado rallied to take down the Wildcats for a dramatic 27-20 upset victory in Ellensburg, Wash.
Senior quarterback Drew Nash threw for 192 yards and two touchdowns on 14-of-26 passing and carried the ball 14 times for 47 yards and a score to lead Western Colorado (10-2) into a second-round date with Texas Permian Basin. The Mountaineers will host the Falcons next Saturday at 1 p.m. after they upset CSU Pueblo in the game opposite them in the bracket.
The first of Nash’s two touchdown passes, a 3-yard hookup with Ramon Ruiz, put the Mountaineers ahead 21-20 with 11 seconds left in the third quarter. And the second, a 41-yarder to Joshua Dixon, gave them a 27-20 advantage with 6:58 left.
Central Washington got three cracks at tying the game, but the best the Wildcats could do was a 10-play, 32-yard march that ended at its own 43-yard line with 14 seconds to go.
UT Permian Basin 37, CSU Pueblo 24: The Cardiac Pack finally ran out of comebacks.
CSU Pueblo’s dream season, punctuated by three consecutive comeback wins to claim a second straight RMAC football title, came to a crashing halt with a loss to Texas Permian Basin on Saturday afternoon at the ThunderBowl.
The Falcons (10-2) were ahead 30-3 with 8:29 left in the third quarter by the time Kanon Gibson fired his third touchdown pass of the game. The junior quarterback completed 24 of 34 passes for 343 yards and also ran in a pair of touchdowns.
The ThunderWolves (10-2) attempted another desperation rally with Kiahn Martinez running in a touchdown from 4 yards out, and quarterback Roman Fuller finding Reggie Retzlaff for a 2-yard scoring pass to cut the Permian lead to 30-17 with 9:13 left. But the ThunderWolves fumbled the ball on their next possession, and Gibson ran in his second TD of the game shortly after that to put the game away.
Want more sports news? Sign up for the Sports Omelette to get all our analysis on Denver’s teams.