In the blink of an eye, a 29-point lead nearly evaporated.

Thankfully, some never left.

The No. 24 Lakers held off Southwest Baptist 36-28 at Lubbers Stadium in front of a black-clad crowd of 11,124.

“Give Southwest Baptist a lot of credit,” said GVSU head coach Matt Mitchell. “There was a point in time where we had a pretty comfortable lead and they just kept fighting and battling back… We had far too many penalties and too many turnovers on the offensive side of the ball.

“We’re happy we got the win but they put us in a dogfight in the end because of a lot of the mistakes we made.”

GVSU stormed out to a 29-7 halftime lead on the arm of new quarterback Bart Williams.

Williams tossed his fourth touchdown of the day to start the second half as the Lakers expanded their lead to 36-7.

Then, things changed.

Quarterback Trent Edwards II entered the game in the second half for SBU, and the Bearcats put up 21 consecutive points to draw the game to within eight with about seven minutes remaining.

The Lakers avoided total meltdown, however, and iced the game with a Joe Moran interception. Defensive end Matt Judon got to Edwards II and forced a high, floating pass. Moran snagged it uncontested and the Lakers took over near midfield with under two minutes to go.

“It was a team effort play,” Judon said. “(Moran) was in his drop and I was just getting after the pass rush and I just got my hand on the ball. It was just an effort play by me and Moran.”

Judon’s play was the biggest of the game – but not his only one. The senior captain recorded 4 1/2 sacks – just short of the GVSU single game record of 5.

The Laker defense was strong in the first half, but Edwards II carved up GVSU’s secondary in the second.

The Lakers allowed 361 yards and forced two turnovers – interceptions courtesy of Moran and sophomore Garrett Pougnet.

Williams, a redshirt sophomore, went 23-36 for 300 yards, four touchdowns and two interceptions.

“It wasn’t as clean as it could have been,” Williams said. “It feels good but we’re not satisfied with the performance.”

Williams threw two touchdown passes to junior receiver Matt Williams. He also found wide receivers Brandon Bean and Urston Smith as part of his four touchdown tosses.

Redshirt freshman tailback Martayveous Carter had somewhat of a coming out party, rushing for 84 yards and a 1-yard touchdown on 10 carries.

Matt Williams led the way for the Laker receiving core. Williams was the recipient of two Bart Williams touchdown passes, and hauled in seven catches for 104 yards.

Bart Williams hit his receivers on touchdown passes of 41-yards, 31-yards, 21-yards and 16-yards, respectively.

“I’d rather sit here with these teaching moments 1-0,” Mitchell said. “We got a group of guys who understand our expectations. We had a lot of opportunities that we didn’t take advantage of in the second half… I’d rather be 1-0 than 0-1 and making all these corrections.”

Sophomore Collin Schlosser came up with a sack in the end zone to force a safety early in the second quarter.

Edwards II came in as a second half replacement and threw for 239 yards on 14-20 with two touchdowns and an interception.

GVSU returns to the gridiron next Saturday in Columbus, Ohio to take on No. 8 Ohio Dominican at 12:30 p.m.