Mercer Holds Off East Texas A&M 23-15 After a Big First Half
Take away the pick-six and this is a 16-15 game. That is how close East Texas A&M came, and how much one throw cost it.
Mercer had built a 23-0 halftime lead without much help from its offense. Simon Zeidan kicked a 55-yard field goal with 6:45 left in the first quarter, Jaylen King hit Jackson Kostmayer from 12 yards for a touchdown, and Zeidan added field goals of 21 and 33 yards. Then, with 0:15 left in the half, Cameron Goggins stepped in front of an Eric Rodriguez pass and took it back 38 yards. Three Rodriguez interceptions in all, and none of them for free.
East Texas A&M used the second half to make it respectable. Rodriguez found Micah Simpson on a 48-yard touchdown with 6:47 left in the third, and early in the fourth Quay Middlebrooks scored from a yard out, with Rodriguez running in the two-point conversion to make it 23-15. Mercer did not score after halftime, and it did not have to. The Bears never trailed and the final margin was 8.
The yardage is a surprise: East Texas A&M had 383 total yards to Mercer's 353, 232 of them through the air. But Mercer ran 35 times for 176 yards, committed no turnovers against three, and that was plenty. Mercer is 1-0, and East Texas A&M is 0-1.
For fantasy, the top of the board belonged to the pass catchers. Simpson caught 9 passes for 165 yards on the losing side, and Mercer's Brayden Smith had 9 for 131 without a touchdown.