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Pierre Strong, Jr. caught a 1-yard pass from Mark Gronowski for the South Dakota State Jackrabbits with 19 seconds remaining to seal a 24-20 win over the Northern Iowa Panthers on Friday night at the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls, Iowa.
The Jackrabbits (1-0) had the lead for most of the contest and led 17-7 at halftime, but gave up 13 points unanswered to open the second stanza. Unable to move the ball for most of the second half, a key play came on 3rd and 5 with 2:16 remaining as Zach Heins slipped past the Panthers defense for a 42-yard game to set up first and goal from the two-yard-line.
HUUUGE PLAY! Gronowski finds a wide-open Heins! First and goal coming up for the Jacks!#GoJacks pic.twitter.com/Q1Pxd37B3O
— SDSU Football (@GoJacksFB) February 20, 2021
From there SDSU let the clock run down while Northern Iowa chose not to burn their two available timeouts. That decision would come back to cost them as Strong scored on third and goal from the 1-yard line.
TOUCHDOWN! JACKS LEAD! Big play for the Jackrabbit offense on 3rd down with 24 seconds left in the fourth quarter! #GoJacks pic.twitter.com/2OYxi84g1M
— SDSU Football (@GoJacksFB) February 20, 2021
Final stats were not available for the game as of this writing due to technical difficulties at the UNI-Dome, as they stopped working with 8:35 remaining in the fourth quarter.
The Jackrabbits closed as a 1.5 point favorite at DraftKings Sportsbook.