Salukis win conference championship

The No. 1 SIU (9-1, 8-0 Missouri Valley Football Conference) took advantage of numerous turnovers as it defeated Missouri State 44-24 Saturday in the final regular-season home game at McAndrew Stadium.
The win guaranteed the Salukis the outright conference title, and made them the first team ever to go undefeated in league play. They also set the MVFC record with their 14th straight conference win.
Head coach Dale Lennon said taking the conference title outright has been on the minds of the players all week.
“It was definitely on the players’ minds,” Lennon said. “That is all the senior class emphasized, we don’t want to share this. We want to be greedy. It’s one of the only times I can be OK with greed.”
The conference title is the fifth one SIU has won since 2004, but only its second outright title. Last year the Salukis shared the title with Northern Iowa.
The Bears came into Saturday looking to stop their six-game losing streak against the Salukis, and after the Bears’ first possession, it seemed as if all the pre-game pageantry would be for naught.
On the fourth play of the game, running back Chris Douglas tore through the middle of SIU’s defense, going 65-yards untouched to give Missouri State a 7-0 lead in less than two minutes.
The scamper was the longest run given up by the Salukis this season, and only the second time this season the opposition scored on its opening drive.
The Salukis answered back though, as quarterback Paul McIntosh found wide receiver Joe Allaria up the middle for a 56-yard reception. Senior running back Deji Karim capped off the drive with his seven-yard touchdown run — his 12th rushing touchdown of the season.
Missouri State (6-5, 4-4 MVFC) continued its ground assault on the next drive, rushing all the way to SIU’s 16-yard line, but a botched option between quarterback Cody Kirby and Douglas resulted in a fumble that SIU’s Tony Colletti scooped it up.
“We had a guy there on the spot, ready to force the quick pitch,” Lennon said. “The pitch was mishandled and we were on top of it. The big plays I feel were in the first half and set us up for pulling ahead of Missouri State.”
The string of turnovers was only beginning for the Bears.
On the ensuing SIU punt, returner Cedric Alvis took the ball 22-yards before fumbling it on the Bears’ 39-yard line.
The Salukis made them pay as Karim punched in his second touchdown of the day on a three-yard run up the middle.
The defense got in on the scoring as cornerback Brandon Williams picked off Kirby and ran it back for the score, giving the Salukis a 21-7 lead.
Mike McElroy did his best Williams impression early in the third quarter as he returned a Kirby pass 80-yards to the end zone to put the Salukis up 41-7.
“That play was tiring,” McElroy said. “Having to run up the field like that was a good workout.”
Missouri State finished the game with five turnovers, including three interceptions. Missouri State outgained SIU 464 yards to 358 yards, but Lennon said statistics are irrelevant when the defense forces turnovers.
“You can’t even look at the statistics for this game to do justice to it,” Lennon said. “When your defense is getting turnovers and getting points off of them. We lost a couple series because of those plays. Then in the fourth quarter we brought in all the backups, so the numbers mean nothing.”
Karim continued his dream season, finishing with 14 carries for 117 yards and three touchdowns. The redshirt senior leads the Football Championship Subdivision with 14 rushing touchdowns. He even showed off some hands, catching a pass in the second quarter after it bounced off Allaria.
“He told me after the play that he planned that, but it was going all the way all day after that,” Karim said.

from The Daily Egyptian – http://www.siude.com/sports/salukis-win-conference-championship-1.2083459

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We Enjoyed The Heavy Snowfall

To us from Malaysia, coming from hot and humid weather all the year round and never ever will see snow in our lifetime (if we never got the chance to study overseas), it was one of the most beautiful experience we had every time it snowed in Carbondale.

That would be the time we will put extra layer of thick clothing [even though sometime it was not that cold] covering every part of our body. Everyone of us got the chance of having to play snow for the very first time. How wonderful.

There were a few occasions when SIU had to be closed as many of the roads were not passable. But then for us it will be time to wander around the campus to enjoy the knee deep snow or sometime up to our waist level.

It is so memorable that we would take these opportunities to capture forever in photo shots of various locations, posing as many shots and playing childishly.

Unfortunately, those shots supposed to be captured for future nostalgic story telling to others were not kept properly and either lost or damaged by our humid weather back home. With working up our career and photos kept all over in kampung somewhere and moving from one house to another in keeping up with hectic life – we lost the those memorable shots that we intend to keep.

And that was what happened to me. Many of those photos were gone, lost or damaged.

Here are some of those that I managed to salvaged. Some had to be digitally doctored else the colors were so bad that you wonder what season they were shot – snow turned out yellowish!

Please share you photos here. Send to me your scanned photos.

With Shukri Azam – who has the most sophisticated camera among us.

The childish play … and we enjoyed it

Was this near the Student Center?

By the little “forest” next to the Student Center.

With Che Wahab Che Man … pretending it was a waist deep!

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