CANYON. Texas – The Buffaloes of West Texas A&M were doomed by big plays on Saturday night as they fell to the UT Permian Basin Falcons, 21-7 in Lone Star Conference action in front of over 6,000 fans at Bain-Schaeffer Buffalo Stadium in Canyon.
 
The Falcons jumped out to an early lead on their first possession of the night as Isaac Mooring connected to Ben Patterson from 54 yards out for the 7-0 advantage. WT settled into an offensive rhythm on their next drive as a pair of long completions to Tucker Swoboda setup a 33-yard strike from Kanon Gibson to Zorian Stanton to tie the game at 7-7.
 
UTPB retook the lead on their next drive as they went 63 yards on 12 plays finished off by a Tyler Cleveland 17-yard touchdown run. The Falcons forced a punt on West Texas A&M's next drive as James Ingham pinned the Falcons on their own eight yard line but a pair of long passes setup a Mooring three-yard carry on fourth down to make it 21-7.
 
UT Permian Basin looked to add to their lead early in the third quarter as a pair of lone third down conversions moved them into scoring position before a defensive stop by the Buffs as UTPB missed a 42-yard field goal to keep it 21-7. 
 
The Buffalo offense put together a drive of their own to start the fourth quarter as Swoboda caught two more big passes over the middle to setup a trip to the redzone before the second interception of the night by the Falcons gave UTPB the ball back with 10:23 left. The WT defense would force a Falcons punt, the Buffs would march down the field before a fumble on fourth and long gave the ball back to UTPB with 4:56 left. The Falcons would finish out the game on the ground for the 21-7 win.
 
Gibson finished the night completing 17-of-28 passes for 218 yards and a touchdown to go along with nine carries for 25 yards. Tre'Jon Henderson led the way in the backfield with 53 yards on 13 attempts while Swoboda caught six passes for a team-leading 115 yards.
 
Defensively, Zach Schlager was all over the field with 19 total tackles (six solo) with one of them coming for a loss followed by JT Cavender with 11. Cavender's 11 tackles on Saturday ran his career total to 320, moving into sixth on West Texas A&M's all-time tackles list to pass Eric Collins (2017-21) and Kyle Voss (2009-13) with 310. 
 
The Buffs hit the road next Saturday as they travel to South Texas for Lone Star Conference action, taking on the Texas A&M-Kingsville Javelinas with kickoff set for 7:00 p.m. at Javelina Stadium. TAMUK picked up a 21-14 victory on the road at Western Oregon on Saturday afternoon.