By DOUG ZALESKI
dzaleski@muncie.gannett.com

MUNCIE — Too much celebration. Good but not great pass coverage on the winning drive. Lack of awareness for the ball.
The highs and lows that represent Ball State’s football season were on full display in the final six minutes Saturday. And like multiple other times, the Cardinals allowed an opportunity to slip through their hands.
“It’s all about finishing right now,” Ball State linebacker Davyd Jones said. “That’s what we need to work on, finishing the game for four quarters.”
The Cardinals reached the brink of a second straight victory, but late-game mistakes cost them dearly as they fell 20-17 to Ohio at Scheumann Stadium.
The game featured a bevy of miscues by both teams in front of an announced crowd of 7,321, a Ball State season low.
Ball State (1-8, 1-4 Mid-American Conference West) committed nine penalties, gained only 247 yards on offense (second-lowest total of the year), suffered a blocked punt, allowed Ohio’s punter to run for a first down on the back side after dropping a snap on a possession that led to a field goal, and roughed the punter on another possession that produced a field goal.
Despite the errors, the Cardinals eventually gained a 17-12 lead with 5:52 remaining in the game on a 35-yard reverse pass from Tanner Justice to Jeremy Hill out of the Wildcat formation. The play started with a snap to tailback Quale Lewis, who handed off to tailback Cory Sykes, who faked a reverse run before flipping the ball to Justice.
“We put it in recently to give the Wildcat something else so defenses can’t load the box and just play the run,” Justice said.
But just when the Cardinals gained that momentum, they gave it up as Hill tossed the ball in the air after reaching the end zone and punched it in celebration. The 15-yard penalty forced Ball State to kick off from the 15-yard line.
“You don’t know how it’s going to end, but you have to pull a rabbit out of the hat,” Cardinals coach Stan Parrish said of his feeling about having to kick from the 15.
Ohio had mistake issues of its own. The Bobcats gave up a 55-yard run to set up Ball State’s first touchdown, were hoodwinked on Justice’s reverse pass, threw an interception on the goal line to ruin a sure scoring opportunity, and roughed BSU punter Scott Kovanda to extend the drive that led to the Cards’ go-ahead score in the fourth quarter.
Yet when it came time to rally, the Bobcats (6-2, 4-1 MAC East) — whose only scoring in the first 56 minutes were a school record-tying four field goals by Matt Weller — were up to the challenge on a cold day, on the road, knowing they already had committed a bunch of mistakes.
“I don’t know if we said ‘now or never,’ but I think guys got that feeling,” Ohio coach Frank Solich said. “This was the end of the ball game, we haven’t been doing it, and now all of a sudden we had to come up with a drive, and we had to come up with some plays to make it work.”
They put together a 58-yard touchdown drive after the Hill celebration penalty to gain a 20-17 lead with 3:11 remaining in the game.
Ohio put itself in position when Lavon Brazill gained a step on Cardinals cornerback Koreen Burch and caught a perfect pass from Theo Scott for a 34-yard gain to the 5-yard line. On third down from the 7, Scott underthrew a fade route to Terrence McCrae, but McCrae reached back over the head of Cardinal corner Jason Pinkston and made the acrobatic catch to give the Bobcats the lead with 3:11 to go, and ultimately the win.
“Coming off the line, I got (Pinkston’s) hips turned a little bit, and it looked like that threw his sense of direction off,” McCrae said. “I think he wanted to push me more to the inside, but I managed to get outside.”
Ball State came close to getting in field-goal range for an attempt to tie the score when it reached the Ohio 37 with 2 minutes to play. But an intentional grounding penalty on Justice trying to avoid heavy blitz pressure by Patrick Tafua on third down put the Cardinals back on their 43. A fourth-down pass completion came up 12 yards short of the first down.
That turned the ball over to Ohio with 1:15 to go, and the Bobcats ran out the clock for the win.
z Contact sports writer Doug Zaleski at 213-5813.