While the results on the scoreboard were not what the Stetson Hatters were looking for on Saturday night at Spec Martin Memorial Stadium, the game on the field showed Stetson fans that this team may have turned a corner.

While the Hatters lost to the defending Pioneer Football League champion Butler Bulldogs 49-41, Stetson fans now know that this Stetson team is capable of playing with any of the remaining teams on the schedule.

“I think there's a lot to build on,” Hatters coach Roger Hughes said. “In a lot of respects, I think we grew up a lot tonight. They (Butler) have a lot of experience and a lot of winning tradition of being a champion and once you've done that there's a confidence, there's a belief, you will find ways to win games and I thought they did that tonight. That is where we want to get our program to.”

The game turned against the Hatters (2-3, 0-1) early in the third quarter as Butler (3-2, 1-1) scored a pair of quick touchdowns to turn a 20-14 Stetson lead at halftime into a 28-20 Bulldogs lead. Even though the Hatters came back and tied the game, it seemed as if Stetson was playing catch-up for the rest of the night.

“It just seemed like we couldn't get caught back up totally,” Hughes said. “We got caught up, but could never go forward once we lost the lead. The kids played 60 minutes, they had chances to give up, and at the end they had a chance to get an onside kick and a chance to go down and win the game.”

Even after Butler pushed its lead to 14 points, 49-35, with just 1:53 left in the game, the Hatters kept coming.

That “never give-up” attitude for Stetson led to some career performances for the Hatters. Quarterback Ryan Tentler became the first player to pass for 300 yards in a game, completing 18-of-32 passes for 328 yards and five touchdowns. He was intercepted twice, but on one the ball was ripped from a Stetson receivers' hands, and the other was a deflection off a receiver.

“We knew that we could put up some points on them, but when we have turnovers, that puts the defense right back out on the field,” Tentler said. “That hurts them. Then, when they got a turnover for us, I don't think we scored on that drive. Those are the things we have to take advantage of.”

The Hatters had four turnovers in the game to just one for the Bulldogs. Two of those four turnovers led directly to Butler touchdowns.

“That was a tough football game and right now I think we are feeling pretty bad because we beat ourselves in a lot of respects,” Hughes said. “From the standpoint of penalties and turnovers in crucial situations, we put our defense in bad field position and we have to come out and be better at executing offensively and defensively in the third quarter.”

In addition to Tentler's night, Kegan Moore had a breakout performance with six receptions for 191 yards and three touchdowns. He scored on passes of 65, 24 and 55 yards. To top it off, he came within a step or two of having two other touchdown catches in the game.

“Early on in the game we were running the ball a lot and we noticed that, in one of our formations, one of their corners was trying to play man on Kegan,” Tentler said. “In a straight line, Kegan is one of the fastest players in college football, and if they are playing him man, you can't keep up with him. We saw that and took advantage of it multiple times. If we could have done that one more time, the game might have turned out different.”

The third member of the offensive trifecta for the Hatters was Cole Mazza, who posted his second straight 100-yard rushing performance, carrying the ball 22 times for 129 yards.

“Cole is a hell of a back,” Tentler said. “He was just making plays tonight. We were pulling the ball out and making the pitch, and there was a safety right there and he just jukes him and makes him miss. It is just natural instinct for him. You can't explain it and you can't coach it, it is just what he does. He runs the ball hard.”

While the offense had one of its best nights, piling up 555 yards, the Stetson defense didn't have the kind of game they were looking for. Even though the Hatters forced Butler to punt 10 times in 18 true possessions, it was the big plays that allowed the Bulldogs to stay in front in the second half.

“Our scheme was there but, when you blitz in man coverage, it leaves everyone on an island, and if one person misses a tackle or an assignment, it is a touchdown,” defensive back Donald Payne said. “I thought we came out after the half and got back on our heels a little and Butler took advantage of that.”

Between those punts, the Bulldogs hit for scoring plays of 25, 57, 19, 3, 83, 18 and 26 yards. That is 231 of their 411 yards of total offense on seven plays.

“It's one thing if you give it up to just a mismatch on a play on the corner, but it's another thing when they are running it 75, 80 yards and part of that is because of the movement we have to have to help our front,” Hughes said. “Sometimes, that exposes your man and there is not a lot of secondary support to make the play.”

The Hatters took their opening possession of the night and drove 73 yards in nine plays with Jerami Singleton carrying for the final five yards for a touchdown. The PAT put Stetson up 7-0, the Hatters first lead in a home game this year.

After the teams traded punts, the Bulldogs found their offensive groove mid-way through the opening quarter. Butler quarterback Matt Shiltz drew his team even with a 25-yard pass to Sam Schrader with 6:04 left in the quarter.

Butler hit for a big play early in the second quarter to take the lead. Schrader broke through the Stetson defense for a 57 yard TD run. The PAT put the Bulldogs up 14-7 with 13:02 left in the half.

After another exchange of punts, the Hatters got back on the board when Chris Crawford hauled in a 26-yard pass from Tentler. The PAT was blocked, leaving the Hatters down 14-13 with 9:04 to go in the half.

After Stetson's defense forced the sixth Butler punt of the half, the Hatters offense hit for a big play. Tentler send receiver Moore deep on a post pattern and connected for a 65-yard TD. The PAT gave Stetson a 20-14 lead with 1:59 left in the half.

The Stetson defense gave the Hatters another scoring chance at the end of the half, forcing another punt to get the ball back to the offense with less than a minute to play. By running and passing, Tentler quickly moved Stetson into field goal range with six seconds left but, instead of attempting the 36-yard kick, the Hatters ran a fake.

Kicker James LaGamma took a pitch from holder Ryan Selimos, but was run out of bounds at the 12 yard line as time expired in the half.

Things turned quickly in the third quarter when Butler used just five plays to go 61 yards on their opening drive, with Rico Watson bringing in a Shiltz pass for a 19-yard TD. After forcing a Stetson punt, the Bulldogs needed six plays to cover 63 yards on their next possession, with Shiltz hitting Derek O'Connor with a 3-yard TD pass.

That second Butler drive got the benefit of two big penalties against the Hatters – one for unsportsmanlike conduct, and the other for pass interference.

Stetson answered that second Butler TD drive with a drive of their own, covering 75 yards in eight plays with Tentler hitting Moore for a 24-yard score. Tentler then threw to Crawford for the two-point conversion to tie the game at 35 with 4:49 left in the third.

The tie lasted all of 25 seconds. Following the kickoff, Schrader, who scored four touchdowns in the game while rushing for 193 yards on just nine carries, ran right though the middle of the Stetson defense for an 83 yard touchdown.

Shiltz added to the lead early in the fourth quarter when he ran untouched for an 18-yard score on the first play after a Stetson turnover.

The Hatters answered with a quick scoring drive to get back to within seven, with Tentler hooking up with Moore on a 55-yard TD pass, but Shrader again beat the Stetson defense, this time on a 26 yard run with just 1:53 to play.

Stetson did not give up, scoring again with 40 seconds left on a 21-yard pass from Tentler to Selimos, but the Hatters' hopes of a comeback ended when Butler recovered the onside kick that followed the score to seal the Bulldogs' victory.

Even with the loss, most of the Hatters felt that the game may have marked a turning point for the program.

“The academic answer is yes, the emotional answer is we can't set our standards any lower than winning for excellence,” Hughes said. “But, as your developing a program, clearly there are things we need to build on here and I think overall the culture of the team is improving.”

The players themselves realize that it was the mistakes they made that were the difference.

“We came out aggressive and composed and we fought to the very end,” Payne said. “Our effort was always there. The thing is the adversity, the turnovers. We have to eliminate those and then finish. There were some games last year that we didn't finish, and this was a game we didn't finish. We have to pick it up and finish at San Diego.”

Tentler agreed.

“This team knows what we need to do to get to where we want to go,” Tentler said. “We know that Butler is one of the best teams in our conference and we just put up a good fight with them. We definitely took a step forward, but it was not a big enough step to where we are that confident. We still have to fix all of these little mistakes.”

The Hatters will have their next chance in a week when they travel to San Diego to face the Toreros.