Top-ranked Eastern holds back Hornets
As a wall of television cameras shielded him from the icy wind, Eastern Washington football coach Beau Baldwin warmed up to the subject of life at the top.
Moments after a 31-28 homecoming win over Sacramento State that was both exhilarating and confounding, Baldwin shrugged as if to say: That’s life in the Big Sky Conference. In their first game as the top-ranked team in the Football Championship Subdivision, the Eagles made just enough plays Saturday night to stay there for another week.
“We’ve played a lot of games like that,” said Baldwin after the Eagles (6-1 overall, 5-0 Big Sky) won their fifth straight game, four of them by six points or fewer.
“We knew it would be a battle,” Baldwin said. “We still have to go back and look at some things we can do to try to put ourselves in a better spot, but any time you have games like that against a great opponent, it is going to come down to the wire.”
It usually does against Sacramento State (5-3, 3-2), which had won four of its previous six games at Roos Field. The Eagles twice took 10-point leads in the second half, the last time when Brandon Kaufman reeled in a short pass from Kyle Padron and took it 52 yards for a touchdown that put the Eagles up 31-21 with just over 11 minutes to play.
The Hornets went three-and-out on their next possession, but got another chance when Kaufman dropped a third-down ball “that hit me in the wrong spot.”
With just over 6 minutes to play, the Hornets used three of them to drive 67 yards and close to 31-28 on a pass from backup quarterback Mason Magleby to T.J. Knowles for a 6-yard touchdown.
“They have some good athletes and they got them into space,” said Eastern defensive coordinator John Graham, whose unit gave up only 288 yards but conceded two long touchdown drives in the second half.
With 3 minutes to play and still holding three timeouts, the Hornets disdained the onside kick but were seemingly beaten when Padron hit Greg Herd for a 26-yard gain to the 50 with less than 2 minutes left. The game appeared sealed on Demitrius Bronson’s 14-yard run, but a holding penalty on the play gave the Hornets one last shot, 21 seconds left at their 10-yard-line and no timeouts left.
Magleby hit Morris Norrise for 30 yards to the Eastern 45, but his heave into the end zone was batted down by Eastern safety Allen Brown.
“I was going for the pick, but then the wind got tricky on me,” Brown said. “We’ve got to be better, and we can’t have close games like this. We gave up too much.”
They did on Sacramento State’s first drive of the game. Trailing 3-0, the Hornets moved 74 yards in 13 plays and took the lead on a 1-yard touchdown run by De’jon Coleman.
“They’re a fast team,” Eagles linebacker Ronnie Hamlin said, “but we missed a few tackles, and we’re better than that.”
Hamlin, the Big Sky Defensive Player of the Week last week against Montana State, had eight tackles. Linebacker Grant Williams, filling in for the fourth straight game for the injured Zach Johnson had a team-high 12 tackles.
Starting quarterback Vernon Adams responded with perhaps the most exciting play of the season. The Eagles were halfway to squandering a second-and-goal opportunity from the Sacramento State 2 early in the second quarter. A false-start penalty and a 3-yard loss on a run by Bronson brought up third-and-goal at the 10.
But Adams evaded a swarm of Hornets defenders, fought through a facemask penalty and fired a 10-yard TD to Herd, a play that was posted on YouTube even as Pavel stepped up for the extra point.
The Hornets picked up only 21 yards and one first down the rest of the half, but were still in the game thanks to a stingy run defense. Eastern strived for a balanced offense, but picked up just 112 yards rushing on 36 carries – a mere 3.1 yards per carry.
The Eagles led 13-7 at halftime on Pavel’s 40-yard field goal.
After an interception ended EWU’s first possession of the second half, the Hornets, starting from their own 14, picked up a first down at the 3, but were stuffed on two straight runs before Safron rolled out on third down and found Morris Norrisse alone on the right edge of the end zone.
Trailing now 14-13, Adams drove the Eagles 52 yards in five plays, including a 22-yard completion to Herd, and two plays later, a 26-yarder to Herd. A 2-point conversion pass to Edwards gave Eastern a 21-14 lead with 8:05 left in the third quarter.
Pavel’s third field goal, a career-high 47-yarder, made it 24-14.
EWU 31, Sacramento St. 28
| Sacramento St. | 7 | 0 | 7 | 14 | — | 28 |
| E. Washington | 3 | 10 | 11 | 7 | — | 31 |
EWU—FG Pavel 24
Sac—Coleman 1 run (Castaneda kick)
EWU—Herd 10 pass from Adams (Pavel kick)
EWU—FG Pavel 40
Sac—Norrise 2 pass from Safron (Castaneda kick)
EWU—Herd 26 pass from Adams (Edwards pass from Adams)
EWU—FG Pavel 47
Sac—Graham 17 run (Castaneda kick)
EWU—Kaufman 52 pass from Padron (Pavel kick)
Sac—Knowles 6 pass from Magleby (Castaneda kick)
A—8,714.
| Sac | EWU | |
| First downs | 18 | 19 |
| Rushes-yards | 33-125 | 36-112 |
| Passing | 163 | 342 |
| Comp-Att-Int | 18-30-0 | 26-37-1 |
| Return Yards | 14 | 0 |
| Punts-Avg. | 5-38.8 | 3-32.0 |
| Fumbles-Lost | 2-0 | 0-0 |
| Penalties-Yards | 5-40 | 8-70 |
| Time of Possession | 26:06 | 33:54 |
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING—Sacramento St., Graham 17-82, Safron 8-32, Coleman 7-11, Team 1-0. EWU, Adams 5-38, Forte 10-30, Padron 6-24, Bronson 13-18, Talley 2-2.
PASSING—Sacramento St., Safron 16-26-0-127, Magleby 2-4-0-36. EWU, Adams 17-21-1-169, Padron 9-16-0-173.
RECEIVING—Sacramento St., D.Carter 6-49, Norrise 5-53, Graham 3-36, Knowles 3-22, Robertson 1-3. EWU, Herd 9-109, Kaufman 6-102, Edwards 6-66, Clark 2-44, Talley 1-12, Gehring 1-8, D.Johnson 1-1.