Victorious Eagles: Nearly Speechless Eastern Washington Stuns Montana, Soars Into Big Sky Conference Lead
In the end, it was more than either Harry Leons or Derek Strey could deal with verbally.
Facing a group of writers and broadcasters moments after Saturday’s stunning 40-35 upset of second-ranked Montana, the two fifth-year Eastern Washington University seniors were asked to put the enormity of the Eagles’ accomplishment in perspective.
Both tried. Both failed.
“It’s unbelievable,” was the best Leons could offer, even though he had answered every question Montana’s defense had posed by throwing for a career-high 424 yards and four touchdowns.
“You can’t describe it,” added Strey, who was obviously unaware that his coach Mike Kramer - who has never met a game he couldn’t describe - was waiting backstage to rescue his less loquacious veteran players. “It was a monstrous struggle,” an emotionally spent Kramer said, referring to the unlikely victory that snapped Montana’s 30-game home winning streak and sent most of a raucous Washington-Grizzly Stadium crowd of 19,019 home in silence.
“It was like being on a violent sea cruise with huge waves and terrible troughs, and at any moment we were expecting our ship to go down.”
But the Eagles, 17th-ranked, stayed afloat, thanks to Leons and his line. Eastern’s blockers claimed the line of scrimmage early and beat the will out of Montana during a 7-minute, 13-play, 76-yard drive that decided the outcome with just under 2 minutes left in the game.
The win raised Eastern’s overall record to 6-1 and vaulted the Eagles over the Grizzlies into sole possession of first place in the Big Sky standings at 4-1. Montana, which hadn’t lost at home since a 49-48 first-round Division I-AA playoff loss to Delaware in 1993, fell to 4-2 and 2-1.
Eastern’s late scoring drive, which included 13 consecutive running plays, put the Eagles ahead 40-28 and made Montana’s lightning-quick, 71-yard scoring march with the ensuing kickoff all but meaningless.
Backup running back Mike MacKenzie, who had replaced injured starter Rex Prescott early in the series, scored the decisive touchdown on a 1-yard run that was a small measure of Eastern’s dominance up front.
The Eagles finished with a near-record 653 yards of total offense, 230 on the ground behind the punishing blocks of Jim Buzzard, Kevin Peterson, T.J. Ackerman, John Kane, Lance Knaevelsrud and a capable cast of backups. Prescott rushed for 166 yards on 27 carries before suffering a concussion on the final drive. MacKenzie finished with 90 yards on 16 carries.
Leons took advantage of nearly flawless protection to complete 20 of 33 passes to six different receivers.
He connected with Jeff Ogden on scoring passes of 86, 67 and 3 yards and threw a 27-yarder to Steve Correa, but none of it would have been possible without the contributions of an offensive line that was as dominant in the final minutes as any in recent memory.
“The unfortunate part of this - or maybe it’s the way it’s supposed to be - is that you play for three hours, but the focus comes down on those violent minutes at the end,” Kramer said. “And I think that epitomized what we are.
“We want to get to those moments in the clutch where our offensive line is deciding the issue. I thought if we could hang on and hang on until 4 o’clock Missoula time our offensive line would decide it, and they did.”
Dejected Grizzlies coach Mick Dennehy could do nothing but agree.
“Their offensive line is as good an offensive line as we’ll play against,” Dennehy said after the loss, which snapped Montana’s 13-game winning streak against Big Sky opponents. “Their size and execution just wore us down.”
The Grizzlies did a nice job of compensating for Eastern’s strength and size advantage with a complex spread passing offense that produced 443 yards. Quarterback Brian Ah Yat, a Big Sky co-offensive player of the year last season, completed 27 of 50 passes and matched Leons with four touchdown throws.
Ah Yat put the Grizzlies ahead 21-17 with a 74-yard touchdown pass to Brian Gales with 6:16 left in the first half and drove his team 84 yards for the 28-20 touchdown on its first possession of the second.
But Eastern responded with three unanswered touchdowns before Ah Yat hit Travis Walker with an 8-yard pass for the game’s final touchdown.
The Grizzlies tried an onside kick with 54 seconds left, but EWU free safety Maurice Perigo, playing on the front line of the return team, made a leaping catch of the high-bouncer and the Eagles were able to run out the clock.
The win helped Eastern avenge last year’s 34-30 home loss to the Grizzlies. Ah Yat scrambled out of Strey’s grasp to throw a game-winning 39-yard touchdown pass with less than a minute remaining.
E. Washington 17 3 0 20 - 40
Montana 7 14 7 7 - 35
EWU-FG Atwood 20, 10:53
EWU-Ogden 86 pass from Leons (Atwood kick), 9:14
Mont-Branen 7 run (Heppner kick), 7:41
EWU-Correa 27 pass from Leons (Atwood kick), 3:46
Mont-Farris 19 pass from Ah Yat (Heppner kick), 10:37
Mont-Gales 74 pass from Ah Yat (Heppner kick), 6:16
EWU-FG Atwood 19, 00:10
Mont-Watkins 8 pass from Ah Yat (Heppner kick), 10:01
EWU-Ogden 3 pass from Leons (Atwood kick), 14:14
EWU-Ogden 67 pass from Leons (pass failed), 9:11
EWU-MacKenzie 1 run (Atwood kick), 1:56
Mont-Walker 8 pass from Ah Yat (Heppner kick), :54
A19,019.
EWU Mont First downs 27 21 Rushes-yards 53-235 17-49 Passing 423 394 Comp-Att-Int 20-33-0 27-50-1 Return Yards 44 18 Punts-Avg. 5-41.6 7-43.9 Fumbles-Lost 1-1 0-0 Penalties-Yards 9-71 8-58 Time of Possession 37:21 22:39
RUSHING-EWU, Prescott 27-166, MacKenzie 16-90, Leons 8-(-22). UM, Branen 13-63, Ah Yat 4-(-14).
PASSING-EWU, Leons 20-33-0-424. UM, Ah Yat 27-50-1-394.
RECEIVING-EWU, Ogden 6-217, Correa 7-84, Ballew 3-62. UM, Walker 9-104, Watkins 6-80, Gales 3-81, Farris 2-27.
, DataTimes