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Football: UL Baer-ly holds onTim Buckley, Daily Advertiser, Oct. 2, 2011 It wasn’t a picture of perfection. Neither was usually Mr. Perfect, Brett Baer. But when everything was at stake Saturday night in front of 26,339 at Cajun Field, Baer answered the call and polished all of UL’s blemishes. Erasing the memory of two earlier misses, the junior kicker from Brandon, Miss., hit a 26-yard field goal as time expired to give the Cajuns a 37-34 Sun Belt Conference win over 0-4 Florida Atlantic. Afterward, Baer found himself underneath the pile as the 4-1 Cajuns celebrated extending their current win streak to four straight and ending a four-game FAU victory streak over UL. "I kept saying, ‘Get up, get up.’ I couldn’t breath on the bottom," Baer said. "It was a while before the message got to the top. But it’s always fun doing that." Most of the evening amounted to good times for Cajuns, who got 26-of-33 passing for 329 yards and two touchdowns from quarterback Blaine Gautier, 12 catches for 176 yards and one TD from receiver Harry Peoples, two grabs for 47 yards and a TD from receiver Darryl Surgent, 57 rushing yards and a touchdown from tailback Alonzo Harris and one Qyen Griffin TD. Until, that is, FAU got two fourth-quarter TDs — passes from Graham Wilbert of five yards to Nexon Dorvilus with five minutes and 41 seconds remaining and 12 yards to Xavier Stinson 1:48 to go — to tie the game at 34. With that, UL buckled up for its most important two-minute drill of the season. "We work the two-minute offense over and over in practice," Gautier said after the Owls lost at Cajun Field for the first time in four games. "Our motto is take what they give you. We knew what we had, and we just had to keep moving the ball." That they did, with Gautier connecting on passes with Javone Lawson (for five yards), Ladarius Green (12 yards), Surgent (five yards), Peoples (25 yards), Lawson again (eight yards) and Ian Thompson (10 yards) during a 10-play, 65-yard drive that ended with Baer’s field goal. "Right when we got the ball, there was no question in my mind we had the weapons to go down the field in two minutes — without a doubt," Baer said. "The whole time, I was just preparing. I thought it was gonna be farther than it was, but Blaine (Gautier) and them did a great job taking it down the field." Key to keeping the chains moving was the catch by Peoples, who reached high for the ball to cap a career night. "I was feeling it by then," Peoples said. "I was in a zone." And the Cajuns were out of a pickle. FAU tied it only after UL had extended its one-point halftime lead to 34-20 behind two other Baer field goals, one from 47 yards and one from 46, and a 9-yard Harris touchdown run. UL actually had ample opportunity early in the third quarter to pad that advantage, but two additional Baer field-goal attempts missed the mark. One, from 48 yards, had the distance but was wide left. The other, coming after linebacker Lance Kelley returned an interception 16 yards to the 16, hit the left upright from 25 yards out. They were the first two career misses for Baer, who had been 14-of-14 dating back to the middle of last season. The third, fourth and fifth times, however, were a charm — but only after a chat with Cajuns coach Mark Hudspeth. "He just told me, ‘You’re better than that,’ and ‘get it in gear,’ " Baer said. "I know I’m better than that." After Saturday, Hudspeth is convinced of it. So, too, are his teammates. "We just knew he was gonna make the kick," Gautier said. The Cajuns looked pretty confidant early on, too. UL struck first, with Gautier finding Peoples for a 31-yard scoring pass. Peoples broke a tackle inside the 5 and walked in, ending a six-play, 74-yard drive kept alive by a roughing-the-punter penalty. It was the first time this season the Cajuns have scored on their opening drive of a game. FAU answered with a 26-yard field goal from Vinny Zaccario. The Owls had taken over at the 10 after a Randell Johnson-forced fumble by Gautier, but Kelley tackled Alfred Morris for a 2-yard loss on third down to force FAU into a field-goal attempt. Before the first quarter was done, the Owls would go up 10-7. Wilbert found Darian Williams a few steps behind safety Jemarlous Moten for a 24-yard touchdown pass, and Zaccario’s point-after try was good with 17 seconds left in the period. Morris’ 6-yard TD run and Zaccario’s second PAT of the night made it 17-7 FAU with 9:19 remaining before halftime. That was yet another Owls touchdown set up by a Cajun fumble, this one Treon Howard’s strip of Peoples at the tail end of a 30-yard reception. UL took advantage of its next turn, though, as Gautier connected with Surgent on a 42-yard scoring pass. UL followed that with a 2-yard touchdown from Griffin, who jumped over the goal line. Baer’s extra point made it 21-17 UL with 3:36 to go before halftime. And that was just long enough for FAU to tack on three more, as Zaccario hit a 36-yard field to make to 21-20 as time expired heading into the break. "We still are not playing our best football. We’re so young. We’re making freshman mistakes," said Hudspeth, whose Cajuns are now 2-0 in the Sun Belt. "But I’m gonna tell you: When the game is on the line, our kids believed that they were gonna find a way to win the game — and they did just that.’
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