As the sun set and the stadium lights burned, the CWU football team rushed onto Tomlinson Stadium to play Midwestern State University (MSU) in their annual Homecoming game last Saturday, Oct. 15. 

CWU left the field with a 17-10 win and now sits with a record of 4-2 on the year. 

“It’s really exciting,” said junior defensive back Patrick Rogers. “Putting on a show for all the students, staff and faculty. It’s a good way to bring everybody together here at Central.”

Stepping up to fill the shoes of starting quarterback Quincy Glasper, JJ Lemming threw 36 passes, completing 26 of them for 227 yards and two touchdowns, leading the way to the victory. Lemming’s efforts earned him the Lone Star Conference Offensive Player of the Week award. 

Junior wide reciever Tai-John Mizutani found himself on the other end of 10 of those passes, logging 85 yards and one touchdown. 

“As a defense it gets us going,” said Rogers. “We feel like the students in the stadium are on our side. When the crowd gets rocking and super noisy it gives us an advantage for sure.”

Head Coach Chris Fisk said, “We played our first game without school being in session and our band being here and there’s an obvious, noticeable difference in energy in the stadium.”

CWU played MSU October 2021 in a 30-20 victory. The Wildcats said they knew that beating them again would be a challenge. 

“They’re coming back to get revenge,” said Rogers. “We just had that loss against Western Oregon, so it’s going to be a good test to see how we bounce back and get through adversity. We’re making sure that we’re playing until there’s all zeros on the clock because anything can happen in four quarters.”

MSU’s home field resides in Texas. Traveling that distance can play a huge part in play, according to Fisk. 

“It’s always difficult to travel from Texas to Washington, so that’s obviously a challenge for them,” Fisk said. “I expect this game to be a dog fight … It’ll probably come down to the last quarter.”

Fisk nearly predicted the game, CWU and MSU were tied 10-10 going into the second half of the game. CWU secured one more touchdown in the third quarter racking the score to 17-10. The fourth quarter went scoreless. 

Junior defensive back and current Observer reporter Jahleel Breland talked about how the team’s defensive unit prepared for MSU.

“We had forced like three or four turnovers the last time we played them,” Breland said. “That played a huge role in it. For this game we’re just going to try to do the same thing. Create turnovers, create big plays on defense and get the ball back to our offense. If everybody does their job I think we’ll be able to get the win.”

All in all, the homecoming game is just another game to players like Breland. 

“There’s not really anything special preparation wise. It’s just another game for us,” Breland said.

CWU will host two more games at Tomlinson Stadium, Oct. 29 versus Texas A&M Kingsville  and Nov. 12 versus Texas Permian Basin that will close out the regular season for the Lone Star Conference.