The Lindenwood Lions will host their first home game of the 2022 season, Saturday night at Hunter Stadium in St. Charles. (Photo courtesy: Lindenwood Athletics)

Cedric Williams
Senior Editor

With the clock running out and the game on the line, in his team’s first game as an NCAA Division I-FCS program, Lindenwood University head football coach Jed Stugart heard the words that make the hairs on the back of every coach’s neck stand up.

“Coach, it’s there.”

It was fourth down. There were 28 seconds left on the clock. And Lindenwood’s opponent, Houston Baptist University was ahead by five points.

The Huskies were getting ready to punt. And Lindenwood was in need of a big time play if it was going to pull out its first win.

That’s when Lindenwood special teams coordinator Bryan Baldwin saw what he wanted and announced it to the rest of the coaching staff through their headsets.

“We had noticed some things about how they lined up for punts,” Stugart said. “And talked about if it was there, we were gonna go for it. We’d almost got one in the (first half). So I told the guys, if we see it again, don’t hesitate. Let’s go for it.”

Houston Baptist lined up just how LU’s special teams crew hoped they would. So they went for it.

And it turned out to be a huge play. Sophomore wide receiver Jalen Bethany broke through the HBU line and got all the way to punter Brian Buell, and blocked Buell’s punt attempt.

The ball rolled backwards and into the HBU end zone, where sophomore running back Andrew Martin recovered it for a touchdown that gave the Lions an incredible 21-20 lead.

“It just turned into straight pandemonium,” Stugart said. “Everybody was excited. We had guys jumping around and screaming and running onto the field. It was craziness. And a lot of times, on those kinds of plays, the biggest part is trying to keep guys back. Trying to keep them from running onto the field and maybe get a penalty. I was excited too. But the main thing I was doing was trying to keep guys back.”

That play turned out to be the game-winning touchdown and gave Lindenwood its first win as a Division I program.

And because it was so dramatic and exciting, it also drew the attention of several national media outlets, who couldn’t help but talk about and show highlights of Bethany’s brilliant block and Martin’s amazing, game-winning recovery.

ESPN had the Lindenwood blocked punt as its No. 3 “Best Play of the Day,” which highlights football action of all levels from all over the country.

FS1 showed the highlight several times on its College Football Roundup show, and even diagrammed how HBU’s poor blocking allowed Bethany to break through, but also showed how even if he hadn’t gotten to the punter, several other defenders may have because of LU’s perfect punt block scheme.

“We work on that stuff a lot,” Stugart said. “And our guys are always looking for ways to make plays and make an impact on the game. Like I said, we almost got one earlier. So we were excited when we got the second chance there at the end.”

As excited as the team was to win its first game — and to do so in the manor it did — Stugart said his team has already put last week behind them and is focused on its home opener, which will be played Saturday at Hunter Stadium.

The Lions will be hosting Keiser University, an NAIA school, which has had a lot of success even though its program is only five years old.

“They’ve made the NAIA playoffs the last couple of years, and they were No. 7 in the NAIA rankings before the season began,” Stugart said. “They’re a good team and we absolutely know we can’t take them lightly.”

Keiser, which has a 1-2 record, with both those losses coming to teams that are ranked in the NCAA Division II Top 25 poll, is ranked No. 14 in this week’s NAIA poll.

“They’ve played a really tough schedule and this is their third straight road game,” Stugart said. “We expect them to come in here and be really hungry to get a win. We know we’re gonna have to play well. We’re excited about the challenge though. We’re looking forward to it.”

Saturday’s matchup at Hunter Stadium between Lindenwood and Keiser is scheduled to kickoff at 6 p.m.