South Dakota State dominated the Missouri State Bears 35-17 in the last game before the playoffs and went on to set a school record for most wins in the regular season with 11.
Missouri State started the day ninth in the Missouri Valley Football Conference with South Dakota State sitting at the top with a 25-game win streak spanning back to last year. With today’s decisive performance, this was SDSU’s 8th win in a row against MSU.
South Dakota State’s first drive would set the stage for how well the offense would work together today. Mark Gronowski would complete two large passes to both the Janke brothers, Jadon’s being 22 yards and Jaxon’s being a 35-yard reception that would put them into the red zone. Gronowski with the QB keeper would lead the Jacks into the endzone for the first points of the game.
Mark Gronowski performed well against the Bears today, completing 16 of 31 passes, and threw two touchdowns. the 323 yards in the air from the Illinois native is now the most yards he has thrown in a game. On the ground, Gronowski rushed 31 yards on seven carries and a score.
MSU answered the Jacks touchdown with a field goal putting them on the board for the first time, thanks to a 30-yard pass from Jordan Pachot to former Minnesota Gopher Larry Wright III.
The Yellow and Blue would finish out the first quarter with a 31-yard touchdown reception from the tight end Zach Heinz putting the Jacks up 11.
The Bears have been successful in the air this season, sitting third in the Valley for passing yards. SDSU head coach Jimmy Rogers knew the MSU’s passing attack could be trouble.
“We knew defensively they were going to be tough in the pass game.”
However, South Dakota State’s defense was unfazed by the predominately passing offense of the Bears only allowing 35 yards out of 23 attempts.
Jason Freeman led the Jackrabbits in tackles in the final regular season game with seven total, while Adam Bock finished with six. Defensive back DyShawn Gales secured five of his own throughout the game.
The No. 2 ranked defense in the FCS was too much for MSU, securing another three and out, setting the offense up at the SDSU 26-yard line in their first drive of the second quarter.
The Jacks narrowly escaped a 4th down turnover with Gronowski rolling out and picking up a 14-yard rush. The drive was capped with Isaiah Davis’s first and only touchdown on the day, the one-yard rush would change the score to 21-3 South Dakota State.
On that drive, Davis passed the 1,000-yard mark on the ground for the season. Today’s game would set another personal record for Davis going over 4000 rushing yards in his career at South Dakota State, only the fourth ever to do so. The Joplin, Missouri native finished the game with 85 yards on 17 touches and a touchdown.
SDSU’s only turnover of the game came late in the second quarter, with a fumble by Angel Johnson, letting the Bears take over at the SDSU 15. Even with the prime field position, MSU could not put points on the board, the culmination of the drive was a missed field goal by Owen Rozanc from the 19-yard line.
Going into the half the Jacks had 15 first downs with 288 yards of total offense, while the Bears only had five first downs and 109-yards of total offense.
The third quarter was a relative stalemate with both teams scoring a touchdown. Missouri State struck first with a three-yard rush by the wide receiver Hunter Wood. South Dakota State answered quickly with an almost three-minute drive that was 93 yards, Amar Johnson punched it in from the MSU 2-yard line. At the end of the third quarter, the score was 28-10 SDSU.
MSU is the second team this year to score against the Jacks in the third quarter.
South Dakota State’s only scoring drive of the fourth quarter came from a 36-yard flea flicker to Jadon Janke, putting the Jacks up 35-10.
Jadon Janke, a fifth-year senior went 10 for 10 and racked up 187 yards. This performance would put him 9th all-time for highest receiving yards for a single game. Janke credits these past performances with defenses being primarily one-on-one.
“It makes it a lot easier as a receiver going out there going out there and running my route against one guy trying to stop me, and Mark {Gronowski} putting it in the right spot.”
The final scoring drive of the game came from MSU with a three-minute drive that resulted in a 40-yard touchdown pass from Pachot to Hunter Wood.
Pachot finished the day with 25 passing attempts resulting in 35 yards, he also rushed four times for a gain of nine yards.
South Dakota State will see the gridiron again on Dec. 2 against the winner of the first-round matchup between 7-4 Gardner-Webb and 8-3 Mercer on Nov. 25. Kickoff is slated for 1 p.m. on the Jackrabbit playoff opener at the Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium.