LAS VEGAS -- Sam Merrill scored 24 points, Neemias Queta had 17 points and eight rebounds, and Utah State won its first Mountain West Conference championship with a 64-57 victory over San Diego State on Saturday.
Utah State (28-6) scored the first 13 points of the second half to pull away after leading 34-32 at halftime. The Aggies, who joined the conference in 2013-14, were the No. 2 seeds after sharing the regular-season title with No. 14 Nevada.
Merrill, who went 11 of 12 from the free throw line, was the tournament's MVP. Abel Porter had 10 points for the Aggies, who have won 10 straight and 17 of their last 18 games.
Fourth-seeded San Diego State got no closer than five points on two occasions after Utah State's run, cutting it to 60-55 in the final minute. But Merrill responded by hitting two free throws with 43 seconds left to seal it.
Devin Watson scored 18 points in a game the Aztecs (21-13) in all likelihood needed to win to make the NCAA Tournament.
Even though the Aggies led for 12 minutes, 15 seconds of the first half, there were 10 lead changes and seven ties in the session. Neither team could build more than Utah State's five-point advantage.
BIG PICTURE
Utah State: This was the Aggies' first conference championship game appearance since winning the Western Athletic Conference title in 2011 with a 77-69 victory over Boise State. Merrill became the seventh Aggie to reach 700 points in a season and moved into fifth on the team's career scoring list with his 21st point Saturday.
San Diego State: The Aztecs won the MWC tournament in 2002, 2006, 2010, 2011 and 2018. This also was their ninth finals appearance in 11 years, all at the Thomas & Mack Center. They have appeared in 11, a conference record.
UP NEXT
Utah State: Awaits word for a seeding in the NCAA Tournament
San Diego State: Awaits word on a postseason tournament berth.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Utah State walked into the New Mexico Bowl with one of its best records in school history but uncertainty. Its head coach, Matt Wells, left to take the Texas Tech job. Interim coach Frank Maile had to prepare the Aggies with an army of graduate assistants and an announcement a new coach was coming next month.
North Texas, meanwhile, was coming into Albuquerque with experienced coach Seth Littrell and highly touted quarterback Mason Fine.
The Aggies pushed those distractions aside Saturday.
Jordan Love threw for 359 yards and four touchdowns and Jalen Greene had six catches for 151 yards and a score to help Utah State rout North Texas 52-13.
Maile directed the Aggies (11-2) even after Utah State announced former head coach Gary Andersen would return. However, Andersen opted not to attend the bowl game and let Maile finish what he started.
Love completed 21 of 43 passes with one interception. D.J. William had two interceptions, helping Utah State ground high-flying North Texas (9-4).
Aaren Vaughns caught two passes for 109 yards and two scores for the Aggies, Gerold Bright ran for 103 yards and two touchdowns on 16 carries, and Darwin Thompson added 93 yards on 21 carries.
Maile said he did his best to get the offense ready. The rest was up the players, he said.
"The guys have lot of efforts to doing their jobs," Maile said. The defense is set up for everybody to make plays."
Love said receivers were able to get open, find space and get yards after the catch. "We've been doing that all season," he said.
Fine was injured in the first quarter, and the Mean Green ended up using four quarterbacks. Jalen Guyton had four catches for 103 yards a score.
Littrell said Utah State was the best team the Mean Green faced all season. "We didn't have enough in us today to make more plays to have success," Littrell said.
When Fine came up limping following a nine-yard run in the first quarter, the whole complexion of game changed. "I don't ever want to put him in harm's way and he is so tough," Littrell said. "He wants to do everything he can for his teammates. But as the head coach, sometimes enough is enough."
After the game, North Texas officials announced that Fine had a severe left strained hamstring. This is the second time in three years that Fine most of or all of the Mean Green's bowl game after a shoulder injury kept him out of the 2016 Heart of Dallas Bowl.
Littrell said Fine left with a "pretty bad" hamstring injury but couldn't give more details.
Cornerback Kemon Hall said it was painful to see his teammates injured but players are trained to always be on standby. "You've always got to stay ready," he said. "You hate to see guys do bad or people get hurt."
THE TAKEAWAY
UTAH STATE: Maile was tasked with preparing the Aggies with a staff of graduate assistants in coordinator spots. Players had to handle the distractions and constant questions over the future leadership of the Aggies and how it would affect their chances in the bowl game.
NORTH TEXAS: Coach Seth Littrell announced this week he would stay with the Mean Green to build on what he started when he took over a team that was 1-11 in 2015. Since then, he has a 23-17 but has yet to win a bowl game in three straight appearances.
UP NEXT
UTAH STATE: Andersen returns as head coach and takes over a program that is rising. Sophomore quarterback Love and junior running back Bright are returning to build on an offense that broke a school record in touchdowns.
NORTH TEXAS: Fine is expected to return next season as quarterback for his senior year. Many of his favorite receiving targets also are expected to return and they won't have to adjust to a new head coach after all.
SALEM, Va. -- Matt Behrendt was the overshadowed quarterback again. Until they played the game.
The Wisconsin-Whitewater senior threw for 365 yards and four touchdowns, and the Warhawks continued their mastery of Mount Union in the NCAA Division III championship game with a 43-34 victory Friday night.
The Warhawks (15-0) extended their winning streak to 32 games, the longest in the nation, and beat the Purple Raiders for the sixth time in the past seven meetings -- all in the Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl.
Behrendt finished 26-for-38 with two interceptions and was named the most outstanding player for the second year in a row, both times after outplaying Kevin Burke, the Purple Raiders' two-time Gagliardi Trophy- winning quarterback.
"I love it," Behrendt said about getting championships over player of the year awards. "Especially for the team to have these two national championships. You can't ever take them away. There's nothing more important than that."
Behrendt had plenty of help. Jake Kumerow caught eight passes for 130 yards and a score, Jordan Ratliffe ran for 116 yards on 24 carries, and Dennis Moore ran for 74 yards and caught two passes for 108 and a critical touchdown.
Mount Union (14-1), the winner of 11 national titles, was appearing in the game for the 10th consecutive season and arrived having changed up some things up on defense after a 52-14 loss to the Warhawks last year in the title game.
On the field, however, Whitewater trailed for only one play all night, at 31-30 in the third quarter.
On the first play after falling behind, Behrendt hit Moore with a screen pass, and Moore found his blockers, cut back across the field and took it 75 yards for a touchdown, restoring the Warhawks' lead to 37-31.
"We had a lot of good blocking downfield," Moore said. "We took advantage of it, called it at the perfect time, had a lot of good blocking and the rest is history."
It was fun to watch, Behrendt said, after dumping the ball off.
"That was the difference-maker," he said. "That play was huge."
The defense had a big hand in things, too.
Burke was 25-for-47 for 323 yards and three touchdowns, but after he arrived at his final college game with 49 touchdown passes and just five interceptions through 14 games, the Warhawks' defense picked him off four times.
"It's football," Purple Raiders safety Alex Kocheff said. "Somebody's got to step up and make a play, and they made a play and we didn't."
The victory sent coach Lance Leipold out in style. He has accepted the job at Buffalo, and finishes eight years with the Warhawks with a 109-6 record and, remarkably, as many national championships as losses in his career.
Mount Union coach Vince Kehres fell to 28-2 as a coach, both losses to the Warhawks in the Stagg Bowl.
"Every time you lose it hurts," he said.
Trailing 30-14 at halftime, Mount Union came out looking more like the team that averaged better than 60 points this season, and Burke looked more like the first two-time player of the year.
He led a 67-yard drive finished off with a 29-yard scoring pass to Roman Namdar and, when the Warhawks couldn't get anything going, a 79-yard drive capped by Logan Nemeth's 3-yard run that made it 30-28.
Behrendt hit Kumerow in the hands on the next drive, and the ball went through his hands and into those of cornerback Tre Jones, who returned it to the 17. The defense held from there, and Edward Ruhnke kicked a 29-yard field goal.
Before halftime, Mount Union made mistakes it hadn't made all year.
For the second year in a row, Brady Grayvold intercepted Burke's pass and returned it for a touchdown, making it 20-7.
That made it 20-7, and Mount Union answered quickly. Burke led the team on a nine-play, 75-yard drive that he finished off with a 5-yard touchdown pass to Taurice Scott, Burke's 51st TD pass of the season.
Just as quickly as he seemed to have righted the ship, the Purple Raiders unraveled.
With less than two minutes left in the half, Mount Union called timeout and forced a punt. The Purple Riders took over at their 10, and on the first play, Burke threw to Scott, who was stripped of the ball by Marcus McLin, who also recovered at the 17. One play later, Behrendt hit Kumerow for a sliding touchdown.
Undaunted, the Purple Raiders had Burke throw deep after the ensuing kickoff, and McLin intercepted it and returned it 26 yards to the 28. Four plays later, Lake Bacher's 23-yard field goal made it 30-14.
Behrendt led touchdown drives on the Warhawks' first two possessions. He hit Justin Howard from 12 yards and Ricky Finco from 7 to make it 13-0 with 2:55 to play in the opening quarter.
IT WAS punt that paid off on Sunday night and one that may continue to reap rewards for West Coast in the second half of the season.
The Eagles' decision to leave Beau Waters out for a third straight week as he recovers from a quad injury was made with the second half of the season in mind.
From the way coach John Worsfold spoke about Josh Kennedy and the Sunday afternoon late withdrawal call on his calf, it was clear no risks would be taken with the lure of the Eagles' bye next weekend providing a potential two-week rest for sore players.
Captain Darren Glass (hip) and Mark LeCras (arm) were others who missed the trip to Melbourne, after not being named on Thursday night.
Those players will now get a fortnight to rest their sore bits – but had the Saints prevailed in the tight game, the Eagles' long-term aspirations as a team would have looked bleak with the result cutting them loose from the top eight.
"If we didn't win tonight, it was going to make the season even tougher for us and there would be no use having Beau Waters fresh for the remainder of the year if we were languishing," Worsfold said afterwards.
"He felt he could play, we felt he could play [but] that was going to jeopardise his continuity throughout the rest of the year so we made a decision to look long-term for Beau in the hope we were going to be good enough to win tonight.
"I believe we made the right call there."
The importance of the four points wasn't lost on veteran midfielder Andrew Embley, who said it was a win that came with character.
"It would have made it very difficult had we dropped this game so whilst it wasn't pretty, it's always a good sign when you're not at your best but you can just do something – or do what it takes – to win," Embley toldAFL.com.au.
"It hasn't been the greatest first half of the year and we knew we had to play a really important game for us today.
"I thought we had to really dig deep in the end and I'm sure the guys would be pretty proud of their efforts."
When assessing the first half of the season, which has provided the Eagles with six wins and five losses, Worsfold used the phrase "a bit stop-start" with good patches and no great games.
Sunday's win came with intensity he was happy with but a skill and decision making level that was lacking.
Still, Worsfold said the result and the team's position overall gave them a chance to right some wrongs in the second half of the season – and do it over a more consistent period.
"We've got ourselves in a position where we believe we can play our best footy at some point throughout the season and maintain it for the rest of the season," he said.
"What I would say is we're disappointed we're not higher on the ladder – that would give us greater opportunities – but there's been some wonderful efforts by a lot of different players in helping us get to where we are.
"It's just four more points on the ladder. We're not happy with the way we played tonight or anything like that, but we've got the points and they're locked away.
"That's the key thing for us right at this moment.
"Yeah, we'd like to be playing better footy and have more players out there but we've got that to work towards - do the hard work now going forward."
Jennifer Phelan is a reporter for AFL Media. Follow her on Twitter @AFL_JenPhelan.
After The Siren Naitanui Goal Lifts West Coast Eagles over North
Nic Naitanui stakes his claim for the AFL’s most exciting player
Robert White
A trademark highflying Nic Naitanui mark in the dying seconds and a goal after the siren lifted the West Coast Eagles over the North Melbourne Kangaroos in a thriller in Perth on Friday night.
Inaccurate kicking plagued the Eagles throughout the night, forcing the team to fight from behind for much of the game before they eventually escaped 12.18.(90)-13.10.(88) winners.
Josh Hill led the Eagles with three goals while Luke Shuey and Josh Kennedy bagged two apiece.
After holding off West Coast for much of the second and third terms, North finally managed to build some momentum by kicking three of the first four goals to begin the fourth quarter. Some run gifted Jack Ziebell and Andrew Swallow goals on the run before Drew Petrie setup Brent Harvey for a short distance set shot.
Down by 15 points with under 10 minutes remaining, West Coast managed to stay alive thanks to some evasive running and a goal from Hill before Shuey was able to shake off what looked to be a badly turned ankle to go back and kick his second with under three minutes remaining.
A well-spotted high tackle on the wing in the final moments rewarded the Eagles with a free kick. A last ditch high ball thumped inside 50 fell into the hands of a soaring Naitanui, who claimed the spectacular mark. He went back after the siren had sounded to seal the two-point victory in front of an ecstatic home crowd.
With some exciting footy being played by both teams early on, West Coast looked the better side for the first part of the opening term as Jack Darling and Kennedy were able to establish themselves as solid forward marking targets. North responded by kicking four straight to finish of the quarter, running out with a 17-point quarter time lead.
West Coast had plenty of opportunities to take the game in the second and third quarter, but 12 combined misses during the stretch meant what should have been a healthy lead was instead a four-point deficit heading into the thrilling final quarter.
Harvey led the Kangaroos with 24 disposals and two goals while Daniel Wells contributed 23. Aaron Black kicked three goals in the losing effort.
