After a solid first half, the Central Methodist football team fell to Missouri Baptist 30-14 in a Heart South Division showdown on Homecoming Saturday afternoon at Davis Field.

The loss keeps the young Eagles squad winless on the season at 0-6 overall. The Spartans improve to 4-1 with their fourth-straight win on Saturday.

After finishing the first half tied 14-14, Central suffered a disastrous second half that included the loss of starting quarterback Jordan Gile, who suffered a broken collar bone in the fourth quarter. The injury will sideline the sophomore from Chandler, Arizona, for the rest of the year.

The injury occurred as Gile was sacked on second down for a loss of eight yards late in the fourth quarter. 

CMU coach Dave Brown said Gile will go in for surgery later this week and will be contributing from the sideline for the rest of the year. “He’ll be around and be a great teammate,” he said about Gile.

The injury meant the return of backup quarterback Alvaro Ortega-Morales to the field.

“Ro jumped in and got into a tough situation early on, third and long. He ended up doing a decent job for us.”

The sophomore has already started about half the games for Central this season after Gile was banged up in the season opener. “He’s played a good amount of football for us,” Brown said. “It’s not like we’re going in there, and all of a sudden, we’ve got a true freshman. So, we’re in a good spot. It’s always unfortunate when you lose the guy who’s established himself and was really starting to grow and develop.”

Gile completed 12 of 17 passes for 140 yards and a touchdown through three and a half quarters. Ro finished the game going 3-for-6 for 42 yards. Neither quarterback threw an interception.

Leading the way for the Central receivers was Carl Robinson with three grabs for 49 yards, including a 40-yard touchdown catch in the second quarter that put CMU back on top 14-7.

“Carl Robinson is finally getting in there and healthy,” Brown said. “We will find ways to get Carl involved now that we know he’s healthy.”

Chase Rankin has been the top receiver for the Eagles so far this season. On Saturday, he made four catches for 44 yards. Fayette native and CMU junior Garren Vroman also made two catches out of the backfield that went for 23 yards.

Vroman was back on Saturday for his second game in a row after suffering an injury in the season opener. He has been a key to helping CMU fix its rushing game. But he only had one run on Saturday for four yards in a rushing attack that gained just 11 yards all game.

Coach Brown said that while Vroman is back on the field, he still isn’t 100 percent since injury sidelined him after the first week. “He is getting a little better each week,” Brown said.

Central realistically picked up 37 yards on the ground, but Gile was sacked six times for a loss of 26 yards. Still, the result was quite a setback for the Eagles, who ran for 350 yards combined over the previous two games.

“Once you’re down, now you’re having to sit there and start to throw it. So, it really limited what I could call in the second half, even though the run game would have been there, we’re not in a position game-wise to call that,” Brown explained. 

After coming off back-to-back weeks with triple-digit rushing yards, running back and Boonville native Dawan Lomax was held to just 31 on 12 attempts on Saturday.

Central opened the game red hot, moving the ball down the field with a balanced attack from Lomax and Gile. Lomax finally capped off the 75-yard drive with a 25-yard touchdown run to put the Eagles on top.

Mo. Baptist responded on the following drive with a 14-play, 63-yard drive that chewed up 6:27 off the clock. 

Central’s offense continued to play well, as the Eagles regained the lead in the second quarter on a perfect 40-yard pass from Gile to Robinson to put Central back in front by a touchdown.

The Spartans scored once more in the final minute before halftime on a one-yard rush to tie the game at 14-14 entering the break.

Missouri Baptist’s game plan was to control the clock. The Spartans chewed up considerable time in the first half and owned the game clock in the second half, limiting Central’s ability to touch the ball.

The Eagles had only one complete drive in the third quarter, a six-play effort that only resulted in one yard of positive offense and ended in a punt. The Spartans held the ball for nearly the rest of the third quarter.

“They took a ton of time off the clock,” Brown said. “One thing they did really well was shorten the game and limit possessions on both sides. So, we had a tough time on both sides of the ball getting into a rhythm in the second half. We only had the ball once in the third quarter. So, trying to get in a rhythm became difficult.”

The Spartans finished the game with nearly 36 minutes of possession, compared to 24 minutes for the Eagles. Mo. Baptist also ran 75 plays for 370 total yards, compared to 48 plays for CMU for 193 yards.

Defensively, Brenden Dye and Dylan Holt led CMU with nine tackles. Holt also recorded a sack, a forced fumble, and a pass breakup.

Central will get some time off over the next few weeks to prepare for what could be the most challenging part of their schedule. The Eagles have a bye week but will move its next game up two days to Thursday, October 17, when they host No. 3 nationally-ranked Grand View University at 6 p.m. under the lights at Davis Field. The schedule alteration will afford CMU another nine days to prepare for a road game at longtime Heart rival Baker on Saturday, October 26.

“We can alter the practice schedule for a couple of weeks to get guys healthy, to get some other guys back into the mix who have been banged up and maybe haven’t been rotating as much just because they’ve been out of rhythm,” Brown said.