Lindenwood chalked up a key conference victory Saturday, beating Arkansas State 38-20 in a non-league Mid-South game.

The Lions, who logged wins over Navy and Davenport in the fall, battled back-and-forth wth the Red Wolves, and needed a 40th-minute try from lock Emmanuel Albert and a conversion from flyhalf Andreas Livadaras to take a 12-10 lead into the break. Lock Dante Bandoni scored Arkansas State's try, which Dale Hartmann converted. Hartmann added a penalty later in the half. 

It was a case, said Lindenwood Head Coach Josh Macy, of trying to do too much. 

"We felt pretty good about our attack," said Macy. "But the issue is, we’ve got to earn the right to unleash that, by playing intelligently in the right part of the field. The couple of times we did that we scored."

In the second half, Lindenwood camped out in th Arkansas State end. With a defense that was putting pressure on the Red Wolves and forcing turnovers, the Lions were able to score early — No. 8 Tinashe Muchena doing the honors — and come right back and work their way over once more. Albert got his second that way.

That made it 26-10 and Lindenwood in relatively control. 

But Arkansas State scored thanks to centerJason Scheepers to claw closer before lock Marnus Spangenburg crashed over. Scheepers added his second for the Red Wolves but wing Cael Hodgson finished it off for Lindenwood.

Macy chalked up the slowdown to reserves coming on and trying to do too much to push for a starting spot.

"We went from doing the easy smart stuff to subs trying to make a play," said Macy. 

Defensively Lindenwood was led by the center pairing of Nick Taylor and Tyren Al-Jiboori. Those two were right up in ASU's faces all day.

“We made a lot of little mistakes, but that adds up,” said ASU Head Coach Blake White. “We’ve got eight freshmen starting. I think we were feeling the nerves and pressure a little.”

This was a solid start to the second half of the season for Lindenwood.

"There are always milestones," said Macy. "You start the season in the fall and then you start the conference games and then you start again in the spring," said Macy. "But we feel good. We like our cohesion, and we want to keep that going."

Elsewhere in the Mid-South, Life University's game against Clemson was called off as Clemson couldn't get through the snow. 

(The Lindenwood-ASU game was previously reported as a league game but it was not.)