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Show T-Bird$ hang on by thread GUNNISON, Colo. Apparently The Southern Utah State College Thun-derbirds Thun-derbirds want to get in on this cardiac kid stuff as they won a big RMAC game on the road Saturday, desperately hanging on to defeat a tough Western . State ballclub 35-34. The win leaves the 'Birds at 4-1 in the conference, just behind Mesa who is 5-1, SU will play Colorado Mines next week on the road, then host Western New Mexico the following week and close the regular season against tough Adams State on the road. The T-Birds have a good shot at winning the conference if they can win those tough road contests. They pulled off a must win against Western State in dramatic fashion. "I'm tickled to death we won," exclaimed ex-claimed a happy Jack Bishop, SUSC coach. "We'll take it any way we can get it. They did a good job coming back." Bishop continued; "We got the big plays in one half and they got the big plays in the other halfi' It was about a 35-34 game. We felt glad to win." Bishop praised the play of his offensive of-fensive line. Running backs Bob Ver-burg Ver-burg and Gary Mason also had excellent ex-cellent games, both going over the 100-yard 100-yard mark. :?.':,-'. '" There were as many big plays in the game as Fisher Price has playthings, beginning in the first half with the antics of SUSC. " With 1 : 53 left in the first period, SU quarterback Ben Bubak scored on a five-yard run: Randy Kerr booted the PAT and it . was . 7-0 in relativley peaceful fashion. The, excitement was about to begin. With :43 left in the quarter, Dave Peck returned a punt 59 yards for a TD and i it was 14-0 for the 'Birds. Early in the second quarter, Gary Mason took a Bubak hand-off on his own 12 and exploded ex-ploded for 88 yards and another touchdown. touch-down. That's the longest play from scrimmage this year in the RMAC. PAT good and it's 21-0. Western State scored on a Sam Seale run to narrow the score to 21-7. No sooner had this happened then Verburg broke one for 69 yards and another touchdown for SUSC. That left the halftime score at 27-7 and things looked good for SU. In the second half, Dave Howell scored on a six-yard run to bring the score to 27-14. Bubak then hit Kirk Hafen with a 73-yard pass, obviously for a touchdown, and it was 35-14. From that point it was all Western State. Howell scored on a short run in the third quarter. He then hit Jim Wallace with a 12-yard scoring strike in the fourth t to bring the score to 35-28. The two teams battled through the fourth period with the SUSC hanging tough until, with :43 left, Howell hit Seale with an 80-yard bomb and it was 35-34. Western State lined up as if to kick the point after. They faked it and threw a pass that fell incomplete in the end zone and the party was over. |