ABILENE - The game was billed as a battle of two of the best junior quarterbacks in the state of Texas.

The Abilene Christian offense shined from the start behind junior quarterback Luke Anthony and sophomore QB Sema’J Davis while Houston Baptist quarterback Bailey Zappe and the Huskies were stymied by the Wildcats defense in the first half.

The result was a dominating performance by the Wildcats as they claimed a resounding 45-20 win over HBU.

“I’m really proud of our players and our coaches tonight,” said ACU head coach Adam Dorrel. “We’ve been disappointed in the outcome the last couple weeks and I thought we played really well.”

“When you play as poorly as we did that comes back to our staff and me to have our guys prepared,” said HBU head coach Vic Shealy. “We made mistakes tonight that we really haven’t made, and they play really well at home.”

ULTIMATE BALANCE

ACU gained 280 yards passing and 303 yards rushing in the contest. Even more impressive was the Wildcats had two players rush for over one hundred yards and two receivers gain over one hundred yards receiving.

“I thought we distributed the ball really well tonight and when we can do that it makes us hard to defend,” said Dorrel. “If you want to be a balanced attack like us you have to be able to run the ball and get positive yards.”

Quarterback Sema’J Davis gained 149 yards rushing and running back Tracy James added 123 yards on the ground while Josh Fink caught 12 passes for 112 yards and Kobe Clark had 107 yards receiving on nine receptions.

“I felt a lot of energy from our offense tonight,” said Wildcats receiver Kobe Clark. “I feel like Luke (Anthony) does a good job of getting all the receivers involved. We knew they were a high scoring offense and we knew we were going to have to put up a lot of points.”

SHUT DOWN DEFENSE

While the ACU offense will grab headlines, the Wildcats defense was equally impressive in the first half. HBU entered the game averaging 49.5 points, 567 total yards per game and 6.7 yards per play this season.

“I thought it started with our defense tonight,” said Dorrel. “I thought it started with the perimeter. They throw so many screens and we challenged our guys all week to get off of perimeter blocks.”

The Wildcats held the Huskies to only six points, 112 total yards and 3.1 yards per play in the first half in building a 21-6 lead.

“We talked about it all week about how explosive they were in the run and in the passing game,” said ACU linebacker Jeremiah Chambers. “We made it a priority to be great on the perimeter and in the run game.”

Shealy was disappointed that his offense was unable to find a rhythm from the start of the game.

“Offensively we just never got in a rhythm and we didn’t play very consistent technically,” said Shealy. “There seemed like there was a rhythm missing tonight from the opening kickoff and I don’t really know why we didn’t get in a flow and in sync.”

TOUGH GAME AHEAD

ACU will remain at home for next Saturday’s game as they host Stephen F. Austin. The ‘Jacks will enter the game coming off a bye week.

HBU will conclude a two-game road trip next Saturday with a trip to play a McNeese team that is always tough at home.