DAYTON, Ohio -- The Southeast Missouri State football team spent four quarters Saturday creating its misfortune and, in the end, couldn't overcome that.
Searching for their first win of the season, the Redhawks failed to convert a two-point opportunity to punctuate a last-minute touchdown and fell to Dayton 25-23 at Welcome Stadium.
"We'll certainly play the what-if game and wish we would've taken care of a lot of those mistakes, so that's my job," Southeast coach Tom Matukewicz said. "Since I've been here, our biggest opponent has been SEMO. The bottom line is we beat ourselves."
Senior quarterback Jesse Hosket guided Southeast (0-2) on a nine-play, 87-yard drive inside the final minute, capping it with a lob to wide receiver Kristian Wilkerson in the left corner of the end zone and cutting Dayton's lead to two points with 46 seconds to go.
Out of a timeout, SEMO lined up for the two-point conversion and Hosket rolled to his right but was intercepted by linebacker Jack Crain, as the Flyers recovered the ensuing onside kick and held on.
"They were rolling. That's why I believed they were going to finish the game out," Matukewicz said about his offense. "It wasn't a lack of execution on the two-point play. They just had the perfect defense called for what we were wanting to run, and they did a better job executing than we did."
The decisive play sent Wilkerson in a pre-snap motion from left to right and was designed to give him leverage on the outside, but with the receiver blanketed in coverage, Hosket was forced to find another option.
"We didn't get that leverage so I just tried to come back inside," Hosket said. "You've got to throw it somewhere. You can't hold onto it and take a sack, so that's what happened."
Hosket completed 20 of 32 passes (62.5 percent) for 251 yards and two touchdowns. He also had two interceptions, the second of which came with a little less than three minutes remaining in the game.
After Patrick Sandler converted a 38-yard field goal to give Dayton (1-1) a 25-17 lead with 2 minutes, 59 seconds remaining, Southeast began the following drive at its own 24-yard line. On the first play from scrimmage, Hosket threw into a host of defenders and was picked off by Andrew Lutgens at the 36. Three straight runs by Tucker Yinger forced Matukewicz to burn all of his timeouts, leading to a pooch punt that was downed at the 13 with 1:47 to go.
On SEMO's final drive, Hosket was 7-of-8 for 81 yards, mixing in completions to both Wilkerson and sophomore Trevon Billington.
"The defense did a great job getting us the ball back with time," Hosket said. "We had to go make something happen, and we did that.
"We just weren't able to finish on that two-point conversion."
Yinger led Dayton's potent rushing attack, finishing with 141 yards on 24 carries. The senior tailback averaged 5.9 yards per carry, while Sean Prophit added 45 yards on eight rushes (5.6 ypc).
"Give credit to them. They've won a lot of football games," Matukewicz said about Dayton. "There's a reason they've had the record they've had. They got us today."
Marquis Terry led the Redhawks on the ground, finishing with 25 rushes for 111 yards, while Cameron Sanders chipped in 32 yards on five carries.
Chad Meredith paced SEMO's defense with 11 tackles, while Kendall Donnerson added seven stops, including three for loss.
In total yardage, Southeast out-gained Dayton 390-292. But in the end, it still wasn't enough to overcome a bevy of self-inflicted mistakes.
"I told the kids, 'We lost this football game because Coach Tuke didn't do his job,'" Matukewicz said. "That's on me, so I've got to do a better job. It's up to them to play better. We can put all our energy back into today, or we can put all our energy back into getting better Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday."