CANYON, Texas – The West Texas A&M Buffaloes came out swinging in an LSC/RMAC prize fight on Saturday night as they took a 13-0 lead into the locker room at halftime before the #5 Orediggers of Colorado School of Mines showed consistency in the second half as they held on for a 21-13 victory at Buffalo Stadium in Canyon, Texas.
 
Nick Gerber finished the night going 12-of-23 for 186 yards and one touchdown to go along with an interception. Noah Bogardus caught four passes for 42 yards while Hunter Kaufman had two catches for 77 yards and a score. Khalil Harris finished the game with 15 rushes for 88 yards. Defensively, Cole Oster led the way with 15 tackles (two solo) followed by JT Cavender with 14 (four solo).
 
WT started the game off strong as they forced a quick three-and-out by the Orediggers followed by a 50 yard dime by Gerber on a wheel route down the sidelines on WT's first offensive play for a 50-yard touchdown to Hunter Kaufman for the early 7-0 lead. The WT defense came up big on CSM's next drive with a pair of sacks to force an Oredigger punt, the Buffs turned it into points as a Jarrod Compton 42 yard run setup a Gage Urias 37 yard field goal for the 10-0 lead.
 
The Buffalo defense forced the first turnover of the night in the middle of the second quarter as Tobias Harris picked off a John Matocha pass and returned the ball to the CSM 24 yard line, Urias would turn that into points as the junior from Lubbock connected from 39 yards out to make it 13-0 with 6:21 left in the half. Mines looked to get on the board on their final drive of the first half but a wide left miss on a 39 yard field goal by Jacob Click gave the ball back to the Buffs as the teams headed into the locker room with WT leading 13-0.
 
The Oredigger picked up a big fourth down stop on fourth-and-one on WT's first drive of the second half, Mines turned that into points as they marched down the field 61 yards on 11 plays as Nathan Mackey took it in from two yards out to cut the lead to 13-7. Mines made another big play as they forced a WT fumble deep inside of the Buffalo side of the field that led to a Matocha three yard TD run for the 14-13 lead.
 
The WT offense stalled on their next possession as Mines took over and registered another long drive, marching down the field 65 yards on 11 plays as Matocha found Josh Johnston from five yards out to extend the CSM lead to 21-13. The Buffs used some big run plays to drive the field on their next possession before an interception that bounced off of multiple defenders gave CSM the ball back with 4:43 left. 
 
The Buffs came up with another defensive stop to give the offense a chance with 2:19 left and 65 yards of real estate trailing 21-13. Gerber completed a 20 yard pass to Bogardus followed by an incompletion and a sack to force a third and long, another incompletion brought up fourth-and-17 heading into a WT timeout. Gerber completed a 14 yard pass to Compton, coming up three yards short as Mines ran out the clock on a 21-13 win.
 
The Buffs take flight next weekend for their longest road trip of the season as they head to Monmouth, Oregon to take on the Wolves of Western Oregon with kickoff set for 3:05 p.m. on Saturday afternoon at McArthur Field.