Don’t blame Missouri Western’s offense for the Griffons’ heartbreaking loss to Missouri Southern on Saturday. With 518 yards of total offense and a positive turnover ratio, that couldn’t be the problem.

“When you’re racking up 500 yards of offense, you’d better win the ball game,” coach Jerry Partridge said.

In fact, three offensive players had career days in a loss that dropped the Griffons from No. 12 to No. 23 in AFCA Division II national rankings. Quarterback Drew Newhart passed for a career-high 383 yards. Wide receiver Ferrell McGhee caught six passes for a career-best 158 yards, and redshirt freshman running back Michael Hill bruised Lions defenders for a personal-best 143 yards.

Partridge said Newhart made only one mistake all day. He hit 24 of 46 passes, without an interception, for three touchdowns. But he fumbled the ball as he scrambled to buy some time on a second-half pass play — Partridge said the video shows his quarterback’s knee was down — and a chance for Western to ice the game was lost.

McGhee, meanwhile, caught two touchdown passes, including a 91-yard catch-and-run that opened the game’s scoring.

“Ferrell can flat-out run,” Partridge said of the speedy receiver, who streaked down the near sideline for the score.

In addition, Hill broke tackles and ran over defenders en route to his best day as a Griffon, averaging 5.1 yards per carry and recording a 24-yard touchdown run. It was Hill’s first opportunity as the featured back, after Thomas Hodges was held out of the game with a concussion he sustained the previous week. Hodges and Hill normally share he rushing load nearly equally.

So with all of this good, why couldn’t the Griffons defeat a team that entered the game just 2-5 on the season?

“This one was on defense and special teams,” Partridge said. “We played good defense in the second and third quarters, then in the fourth quarter — pffffft. Not good.”

No matter how you spell it, it resulted in 21 unanswered points by Southern and a bit of soul-searching.

Partridge said it appeared his team is getting mentally tired in the late stages of games. The loss to a lower-tier MIAA team also forced Partridge to re-think his tendency to trust the maturity of his team to not overlook anyone.

“We’re not going to trust that we’re mature this week,” he said.

Turnaround at home

With one of its season goals already in hand, Western’s soccer team is looking to take the next step toward the upper tier of the MIAA.

With last Wednesday night’s 1-0 home victory against Missouri Southern, thanks to Abby Widrig’s seventh goal of the season, the Griffons finished the home portion of the schedule with a 5-3-1 record (4-3-1 in the conference). They are 6-9-1 overall.

“We were 1-9 last year at home, so to go 5-3-1 is a nice turnaround,” coach Jeff Hansen said. “Now that we’re playing better at home, our next goal is to start turning it around on the road.”

Western plays two games this week, traveling to Emporia State on Thursday, then testing Southwest Baptist in Bolivar, Mo., on Saturday afternoon.

The Griffons avoided a three-game week when the game at Truman State was moved for the fourth time because of poor field conditions. It is now scheduled for noon next Tuesday in Kirksville, Mo.

“That doesn’t hurt my feelings any,” Hansen said. “This way we don’t have to play three games this week, and we’ll avoid the potential for injuries on a sloppy field.”

One that got away

Volleyball coach Cory Frederick is at a loss when trying to figure out his team’s performance last Wednesday at Fort Hays State, when the Griffons lost in five sets.

“That was one that we should have won,” Frederick said, adding that his team played down to its competition.

Frederick said some fans looked at the close game scores and suggested the team must have played pretty well. Not so, Frederick said.

“Honestly, it was terrible,” Frederick said. “It was bad on both sides of the net. Neither team played that good. It was mistake after mistake, and in the end, we made more mistakes than they did.”

Inexplicably, the Griffons hit just .081 against the Tigers, while they were able to hit over .200 against seventh-ranked Emporia State in their next outing.

That missed opportunity on the high plains of western Kansas makes the need to win this week even more critical if they are to gain any respectability. The Griffons host Pittsburg State at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the final home match of the season, then play Friday at Southwest Baptist and Saturday afternoon at Missouri Southern.

“If they won’t win these two matches this weekend, there’s no way that we can finish out of last place in the conference,” Frederick said.

Golfer on the mend

Men’s golf coach Jim Perry hopes his depleted team will reacquire the services of a potential No. 1 player in time for next fall’s season.

While Caleb Carter, a recruit from Benton, played pretty well in his stint as the team’s No. 1 this fall, the Griffons missed the services of Shane Feist, a recruit from North Dakota who had been projected to be in the hunt for the team’s top spot as well.

But Feist was diagnosed with testicular cancer and is recuperating at home. Perry said he spoke with his ailing recruit last week and got a good report.

“He’s got one more heavy dose of chemo to go through,” Perry said. “He’s hoping he’s going to be in school, take the medical redshirt and be able to play for us next fall.”

A dog tale

Coach Kathy Habermehl expressed her satisfaction with the improvement of the women’s golf team this season, as the team recently concluded the fall campaign with a second-place finish in the Avila tournament.

MIAA heavyweight Truman State raced to a 10-stroke lead in the first day of the tournament but fared only one stroke better than the Griffons on the second day. Western’s runner-up finish of 669 was far ahead of third-place Northwest Missouri State.

“We’re playing with the big dogs now,” Habermehl said.

Sports reporter Rick Dunaway can be reached at rickd@npgco.com