ELLENSBURG, Wash. – The Central Washington football team (6-2, 6-0 LSC) heads to the deep southern part of Texas to take on the Texas A&M-Kingsville Javelinas (5-2, 3-2 LSC) this Saturday, October 28^th at 5:00 p.m. PST in a battle of regionally ranked teams in the first regional rankings of the year that are alphabetized.
 
LINKS
 
LONE STAR NETWORK: HERE
LIVE STATS: HERE
 
LAST WEEK
 
The Wildcats notched a major homecoming and senior night victory in the 30-14 victory over the West Texas A&M Buffaloes (3-5, 2-4 LSC) from Tomlinson Stadium last Saturday night.
 
Redshirt freshman quarterback Kennedy McGill shined in his first official collegiate start both in the air and on the ground. McGill finished the night completing nine of his 16 throws for 132 yards and a long pass of 43-yards. He added on 137 rushing yards on the night and rushed in two touchdowns in the process.
 
Tyler Flanagan continued his stellar season piling on 186 rushing yards and one touchdown while Cameron Daniels and Tre'jon Henderson each added seven and five yards, respectively. DeMonte Horton was the favorite target of the night getting four receptions for 54-yards. Kaiden Hammond was the only other Wildcats with multiple receptions with two for 12-yards. Darius Morrison and Logan Brady had a 43 and 15-yard reception, respectively with Darrien Gaines adding an eight-yard reception.
 
Tanner Volk led the Wildcat defense once again with 10 total tackles and a 0.5 tackle for loss. Isaac Clark impressed with his seven total tackles, 0.5 sack, and one pass breakup. The Brett duo of Brett Accimus and Brett McCalla each had four tackles on the night with McCalla added on one tackle for loss and Accimus having a 0.5 tackle for loss. Patrick Rogers finished the night with three tackles and one tackle for loss while Dajshon Deams and Josiah Cochran each had three tackles and a 0.5 tackle for loss each, respectively with Deams also recording a quarterback hurry. Jaylen Clay recorded the only interception of the day adding in a pass breakup as well. Dominic Wieburg had a pass breakup and Daniel Matagi recorded the other half of sack on the night.
 
Dan Stewart had a quiet night punting only twice for 88 yards with one landing as a touchback and the other landing in the Buffs 20-yard line. Jackson McCann had an 18-yard return on a kickoff. Josh Jones shined in his return from injury converting all three field goal attempts with his longest coming from 38-yards. He also successfully made all three of his point after touchdown attempts and had six kickoffs for 369 yards for an average of 61.5 yards per kick.
 
SCOUTING THE JAVELINAS
 
TAMUK is in the midst of a solid 5-2 overall campaign with a 3-2 LSC record thus far. The Javelinas started the year 3-0 with a 30-10 win on the road at Colorado Mesa before a 20-17 home opening victory over 20^th-ranked West Georgia, followed by a 30-9 road win over Western New Mexico to open LSC play. The Javs fell on the road for their first setback of the season at Texas Permian Basin by a 29-17 score before bouncing back with a 28-21 home victory over West Texas A&M. TAMUK fell at home to Angelo State 38-16 before a big 35-14 road victory over Eastern New Mexico last week.
 
The Javs are currently only allowing 19.71 points per game while scoring 25.14 and are currently the top-ranked team in the LSC in points allowed. Offensively, the Javelinas are out-rushing their opponents 962 yards to 811 while their opponents are out-passing them 1,212 yards to the Javs 1,083 on the season. TAMUK has converted 28.41 percent of their third-down conversions and have been excellent on fourth downs, converting 80 percent of their attempts.
 
"Offensively, they're right around where a lot of teams in the LSC are right now," CWU Head Football Coach Chris Fisk said. "They've played a lot of quarterbacks. At times during the season, they've found that winning formula, offensively, and then there's been weeks that they struggled. The scary thing that they do offensively is they run the ball well. They have talented running backs and a very talented offensive line and tight end group. They use a wildcat package with their running backs. They're the type of team similar to what we've been able to do throughout the year. They're in a comfortable position with playing behind their defense and playing the field position game. They excel in special teams."
 
Kingsville has gone through multiple quarterbacks this season, and last week saw freshman Teague Sedtal take over at the helm. Sedtal went nine for 15 for 92 yards and one touchdown and got sacked twice. Due to the inconsistency on who the quarterback is, the Javelinas have put an emphasis on the running game which has been led by Christian Anderson and CJ Odom.
 
Anderson leads the blue and gold rushing attack with 401 yards on 89 attempts as well as five touchdowns and a 71-yard run to have the longest TAMUK rush of the season so far. Odom has also had a 328 rushing yard season thus far on 79 attempts with one rushing touchdown. Roger Hagan has also been a hefty redzone rusher for the Javs rushing for 146 yards and four touchdowns on 36 attempts.
 
Nate Dantley has been the most targeted receiver of the season with 17 receptions for 245 yards and one touchdown. Jaylin Smith has been the second leading receiver in total yardage having 194 yards and two touchdowns on eight receptions, but Jason Gaines and Craig Clemens are second and third on the team in receptions with 15 and 13 respectively. Gaines has accumulated 173 yards while Clemons has had a respectable 153 yards on the season.
 
TMAUK boasts a balanced defense led by Khalid Walker with 40 total tackles and 3.5 tackles for loss, one interception, four pass breakups, one forced fumble, and one fumble recovery. Jaylen Hackney and Ezrah Thiboudeaux have also had over 30 tackles this season with Hackney recording 37 on the season and Thiboudeaux having 32. Hackney has also recorded 3.5 tackles for loss and two sacks with one quarterback hurry. Thiboudeaux currently is tied for the Javelinas lead with three sacks on his 4.5 tackles for loss to pair with his pass breakup and quarterback hurry. Caden Ochoa and Demarcus Hendricks are currently tied for most tackles for loss with six apiece. Amos Coleman III leads TAMUK with three interceptions and six pass breakups. Keon Clary and Blake Jaques each have blocked a kick so far this year.
 
Luke Shaffer has made 25 punts this season for 1,086 yards for an average of 43.44 yards per punt. Six of his punts have been touchbacks and five of them have landed in the opponents 20-yard line. Gilbert Garza has made 10 of his 16 field goal attempts with his longest coming from 53-yards and has made 17 of his 18 point after touchdown attempts.
 
"Statistically, they're the best defense in the conference," Fisk said. "This is another team that runs a unique style on defense, which is very different from what a lot of the other teams in the conference run. We'll have our work cut out for us again, trying to solve that puzzle and what they do defensively. They have a ton of seniors on their team something like 22 or 24 seniors. It's a veteran team, so a lot of the faces we saw a year ago defensively are back, there's not any of those guys missing off last year's squad. I think from an offensive standpoint it's going to be a tremendous challenge. They have a lot of talent in their secondary. They're very good at both corner and safety in particular. Their D-line is extremely experienced, they have four very very good starters, as good as anybody in the Lone Star Conference. It'll be a tremendous challenge for us offensively. Just another week of another tough opponent in the Lone Star Conference. I think the difference between this team and maybe a couple of the teams we've played already is they aren't playing for spoiler. They're a two-loss team that's in the regional ranking, that is fighting for playoff position and are fighting for an opportunity for that. We'll be facing a different spirit this weekend. We're anticipating a heavyweight fight and we know we're going to have to have our best game on the field all four quarters."