LORMAN &8212; The final incompletion on a day filled with near-misses felt like a dagger to the heart of just about everyone on the Alcorn State roster Saturday afternoon.

Not only were the Braves forced to swallow a 28-21 home loss at the hands of Alabama A&M that ended their chances at a Eastern Division championship, but the seniors also had to deal with another season of being so close.

Had Alcorn won, the Braves could have used Valley&8217;s upset of Alabama State as all the help they would have needed to get to Birmingham. Instead, they have to deal with coming up short for a fourth straight season.

&8220;It&8217;s frustrating,&8221; senior offensive tackle Jonathan Lowe said. &8220;My red-shirt freshman year we go 6-5. Then we go 7-5, 6-5 and 7-4 last year. Here we are at the brink of another 7-4 season. I have to be honest with you &8212; it hurts. We&8217;ve just got to go forward and keep your eyes on the prize. Faith &8212; that&8217;s what we work on. Faith.&8221;

The loss capped another season of coming up short, but this one may be different. This year&8217;s Alcorn club has only five seniors and a boatload of freshmen and sophomores who have blossomed in their roles as starters.

You can conclude the future looks bright for a team that&8217;s knocked on the door for four straight years, but head coach Johnny Thomas wouldn&8217;t see that after the clock went to all zeroes Saturday. His club had a chance to play for a SWAC Championship and let it just slip out of its grasp.

&8220;I think this particular loss is a very disappointing loss and crushing loss to this football team as well as our coaches,&8221; Thomas said. &8220;It&8217;s not disappointing to the extent that we won&8217;t be able to recover from it. It&8217;s disappointing because we did not play the kind of football we had to play against a football team that I really believe we should have beaten.

&8220;I&8217;ve been in this situation going on four years. We just had to win ball games heading down the stretch. All of this gets old, but you have to look at it directly in the face and do the very best you can do.&8221;

The Braves moved the football against A&M Saturday and had their chances to win the game. But Tony Hobson and the passing game never seemed to find a rhythm, and the Bulldogs held on late to close the game out.

The win and Alabama State&8217;s loss locked up the Eastern Division title for the Bulldogs, who last played in Birmingham in 2002.

&8220;(Alcorn) has got a heck of a football team,&8221; A&M head coach Anthony Jones said. &8220;They can run the ball, and (Charlie) Spiller is very, very dangerous. We knew we were going to be in another battle. All you&8217;ve got to do is look at our history over the last four years. We were the ones that were blessed here, and we won tonight.&8221;

The Bulldogs moved the ball effectively on the ground against an Alcorn defense that had put up some of its best defensive efforts the last four weeks. A&M finished the game with 211 yards on the ground and put together two key drives that turned the momentum.

One was just before halftime after failing to move the chains on its first three possessions of the game. The Bulldogs began at their own 4 and drove 96 yards on 13 plays &8212; 10 of them on the ground &8212;to set up Kelcy Luke&8217;s 1-yard run for a touchdown with 20 seconds left.

The score gave the Bulldogs a 14-7 lead at the half.

Alcorn tied it up at 14 on a touchdown run from Michael Spepherd, but the Bulldogs returned the favor with a 66-yard drive on 11 plays &8212; all but two runs &8212;as Nic Luke finshed it up with a 2-yard run for a 21-14 lead with 4:06 left.

After the Braves were forced to punt, Kelcy Luke hit Trevis O&8217;Neal on a little screen that O&8217;Neal turned into a 66-yard gain down to the Alcorn 14. Three plays later Kelcy Luke ran it in from a yard out for a 28-14 lead with 12:40 left in the fourth.

&8220;We didn&8217;t tackle well,&8221; Thomas said. &8220;We didn&8217;t execute extremely well defensively.

When we had to do it, especially in the first half, we didn&8217;t do it. We made some adjustments and raised the intensity level a little bit, and we were able to stop them and make them punt the football.&8221;

Alcorn got in the end zone late when Hobson hit Spiller for a 12-yard pass on fourth down &8212; their first conversion all season &8212; with 3:20 left that cut the lead to 28-21.