Hilltoppers knock off Bearkats in Huntsville; Remain perfect in C-USA play
HUNTSVILLE, TX. – Just six days after grabbing a victory at home over the UTEP Miners, the WKU football team hit the gridiron in the middle of the week and accomplished the same result, knocking off the Sam Houston Bearkats on the road by a final score of 31-14.
Coming into Wednesday night’s contest, both WKU and Sam Houston were 2-0 in Conference USA play, but only one team would leave Bowers Stadium without a league loss, and that team would be head coach Tyson Helton and the Hilltoppers.
The scoring started just minutes into the game, as Tops quarterback Caden Veltkamp led his guys down the field quickly, and on the seventh play of the opening drive, he was able to find tight end River Helms in the front corner of the endzone for a 17-yard passing touchdown.
From there, both offenses went quiet until the Bearkats scored and tied things up to open the second quarter, but the defending C-USA Special Teams Player of the Week Lucas Carneiro wasted no time putting his team back in front, booting a field goal on the ensuing drive from 51-yards to give WKU a 10-7 advantage.
Two more drives went by and two more touchdowns were recorded, as Sam Houston answered the field goal in less than two minutes with a 50-yard passing touchdown, and WKU responded with a methodical 13-play drive resulting in an 11-yard passing touchdown from Veltkamp to running back Elijah Young.
Going into the half, the Tops were leading 17-14, and that score stood all the way until the 12-minute mark of the fourth quarter, when WKU wide receiver K.D. Hutchinson ran a slant route and turned on the jets, taking a short pass and extending it 74-yards for the score.
The momentum shifted off of that explosive play, as the Hilltopper defense forced its first turnover of the night, with defensive end Zach Edwards coming away with the football on a fumbled snap, and quickly after, Veltkamp took to the ground for a 19-yard rushing touchdown.
The scoring would wrap up there, but WKU would take the football away from Sam Houston one more time, and defensive back Upton Stout had an interception earlier in the contest overturned, but with four minutes left in regulation, he was in the right place at the right time, grabbing a deflected pass out of the air in the middle of the field to put an end to the Bearkats comeback attempt.
With two turnovers in Wednesday night’s matchup, the WKU defense extended its streak of consecutive games with a turnover recovered to 10-straight, dating back to November of 2023.
Now coach Helton and his squad will have an extended break before their next contest, as the Tops face off with freshly added C-USA foe Kennesaw State at home two weeks from today.
