JAMESTOWN – Little things can win football games or lose them.  Little things didn’t go right Saturday for the Jamestown Jimmies.

Special teams errors led to an SMSU safety and the chance to run out the clock for the Mustangs and missed coverage led to the only visitors’ touchdown as Southwest Minnesota State ended a 12-game losing streak with a 12-7 win over UJ at Rollie Greeno Field at Charlotte and Gordon Hansen Stadium.

Before Saturday, SMSU (1-1, 1-1 NSIC) had not won since the final game of the 2023 season.

The first glaring error for Jamestown (0-2, 0-2 NSIC) came with 9:38 left in the first quarter.  UJ had fourth down deep in their own end and punter Kobe Irmen standing in the end zone.  A snap from Gunnar Majerus went over the head of Irmen and out of the end zone for a safety and a 2-0 lead for SMSU.

Jamestown had a chance to take a halftime lead.  Nick Martinez hit Nate Burke for a 47-yard pass to the SMSU 1-yard line with one second remaining in the half.  After an illegal snap sent the Jimmies back to the six, Aanon Peterson missed a 23-yard field goal and SMSU held on to a 2-0 advantage.

Mason Carver extended the Mustangs’ lead to 5-0 with a 25-yard field goal with 9:34 left in the third quarter.  Carver was also excellent with his punting, delivering boots of 69, 66 and 57 yards through the game.

Later in the third quarter, SMSU scored their only touchdown.  Tight end Jerid Fearing was left uncovered in the end zone and caught a 22-yard touchdown pass from Macloud Crowton and the Mustangs were up 12-0.

The Jimmies came closer with just over nine minutes left in the game when Martinez hit Zach Hammett for a 10-yard touchdown pass, Hammett’s first career touchdown reception.

After an SMSU punt, the Jimmies drove to the visitors’ 39 before Martinez was intercepted by the Mustangs’ Parker Knutson with 4:23 remaining.

Jamestown forced fourth down with just over a minute to play, but never had the chance for a final drive.  A punt by Carver hit the Jimmies’ Gavin Hogencamp.  Tyler Nebelung recovered for the Mustangs, who then ran out the last 58 seconds.

Martinez was 21-of-32 passing for 260 yards,  Hammett rushed for 53 yards and Martinez ran for 45.  Burke had four catches for 122 yards.

Linebackers Luke Van Den Berg (8) and Zach Mueller (7) combined for 15 tackles.  Antonio Bernardini registered a sack.

Jamestown will host nationally-ranked Minnesota State on Saturday, September 20 at Hansen Stadium.  Coverage will begin at 12:30 PM on The Voice of the Jimmies, Jamestown 107.1.  Live and archived video will be available on the NSIC Network.

SMSU	2	0	10	0	12
UJ	0	0	0	7	7

FIRST QUARTER
SMSU – safety (bad snap out of end zone) 9:38 – 2-0 SMSU

THIRD QUARTER
SMSU – Mason Carver 25-yard FG 9:34 – 5-0 SMSU – 8 plays, 62 yards, 3:42 – Key plays: Macloud Crowton 40-yard pass to Colin Maher to UJ 29, UJ pass interference penalty to UJ 6
SMSU – Crowton 22-yard TD pass to Jerid Fearing (Carver XP) 2:59 – 12-0 SMSU – 7 plays, 80 yards, 3:24 – Key plays: Crowton 22-yard pass to Jake Anderson to SMSU 42, Crowton 14-yard pass to Tryg Auten to UJ 36 on 3rd-&-2

FOURTH QUARTER
UJ – Nick Martinez 10-yard TD pass to Zach Hammett (Aanon Peterson XP) 9:10 – 12-7 SMSU – 7 plays, 66 yards, 2:31 – Key play: Martinez 27-yard pass to Ethan Hoffman to SMSU 29

Individual Statistics

RUSHING
SMSU: Tariq Parker 23-85, Zander Wolf 10-15, Greg Schafer 1-7, Crowton 2-(-5), TEAM 4-(-28)
UJ: Hammett 21-53, Martinez 9-45, TEAM 1-(-12)

PASSING
SMSU: Crowton 10-17-153-1 TD
UJ: Martinez 21-32-260-1 TD-1 INT, Cole Hentges 1-4-12-1 INT, TEAM 0-1

RECEIVING
SMSU: Maher 3-50, Fearing 2-34-1 TD, Parker 2-27, Anderson 1-22, Auten 1-14, Ryan Kronbach 1-6
UJ: Burke 4-122, Hoffman 4-49, Erastus Antsino 5-36, Hammett 5-19, Preston Gall 1-13, Lukasz Andrews 1-13, Gage Solano 1-12, Colton Schumacher 1-8

	SMSU	UJ
First Downs	11	18
Rushing	40/79	31/86
Passing	153	272
Total Yds	232	358
Att/Comp/Int	10/17/0	22/37/2
Punts/avg	8/44.2	4/39.2
Fumbles/lost	2/0	4/2
Penalties/Yds	7/58	5/37
Time of possession	32:05	27:55

photo credit: University of Jamestown Athletics