North Alabama Outscores Western Illinois 23-20 with a Late Goal-Line Run
North Alabama had 247 total yards. Western Illinois had 354. The Lions won anyway, 23-20, on a 1-yard Destin Wade run with 51 seconds left, and they are 3-1 for it.
Western Illinois got on the board first when Kennedy McGill hit David Hargro from 9 yards out. North Alabama answered in an odd way: LaFenis Mays Jr. scored on a 2-yard punt return (the two-point try failed), and Wade followed with a 2-yard run late in the second quarter for a 13-7 halftime lead. Ian Vachon's 46-yard field goal made it 16-7 in the third.
Then Western Illinois took over. Hargro caught a second touchdown, this one from 5 yards, with 4:02 left in the third. Ronan Culkin kicked a 31-yard field goal with 4:21 to play to put the Leathernecks ahead 17-16, and a 37-yarder with 1:53 left made it 20-16. That is the part that stings. Western Illinois led by four with under two minutes to go, and the lead was gone in about a minute.
The box score tells you how it happened. Western Illinois did not turn the ball over. North Alabama lost two fumbles and threw an interception, and ran for only 28 yards, with 219 passing yards doing the rest of the work. Western Illinois ran for 88 and passed for 266. Outgained by 107 yards and still 3-1. Football is strange.
Western Illinois falls to 1-2. For fantasy, the Leathernecks supplied all three top scorers of the day. McGill had 25 points, Elijah Jackson-Anderson 20.1 and Hargro 19.8.