Sky high

BOZEMAN, Mont. – There doesn’t seem to be a mountain high enough or hole deep enough to keep the Eastern Washington Eagles down.

Three touchdowns behind early in the second half, the 16th-ranked Eagles rallied to defeat No. 23 Montana State 51-44 in overtime to capture a share of the Big Sky Conference football title on a glorious Saturday afternoon in the Rocky Mountains.

“I really don’t know what to say,” said Eastern coach Paul Wulff, drenched by a bucket of water that camouflaged his tears of joy. “First of all, the Big Sky champs. All that work, you wanted to know what it’s for. This is it.”

The win and a probable berth in the I-AA playoffs was secured when linebacker David Eneberg knocked down a fourth-and-4 pass.

“I saw the ball coming,” said Eneberg, who led the Eagles with 11 tackles in just his third start. “I thought there was going to be a three-step slant in. I was supposed to spy on the quarterback and just stepped out and knocked the ball down.”

The loss knocked MSU (6-4 overall, 4-2 Big Sky) out of the league lead and, with four losses overall, derailed hopes of a I-AA playoff berth. MSU can give the Eagles (8-3, 6-1) the outright league title if it wins at No. 9 Montana (8-2, 5-1) next weekend.

“Even though we had the lead, it never felt like we had control of it,” MSU coach Mike Kramer said. “Our legacy is on defense, it will always be on defense. When your defense can’t hold the fort, anything is possible.”

Eastern’s defense was set up to win the game after quarterback Erik Meyer engineered an improbable second-half comeback, which included 116 yards passing in the third quarter, 163 in the fourth, and three touchdowns to Eric Kimble. The last 5 yards came on a lob pass to Kimble in the back right corner of the end zone that, with Skyler Allen’s kick, tied the game at 44 with 12 seconds left in regulation.

On the second play of overtime, Meyer was flushed out of the pocket, rolled to his right and found Craig McIntyre streaking across the back of the end zone for a 22-yard score.

“They were doubling Kimble,” said Meyer, who finished 25 of 41 for 372 yards and five TDs. “I sprinted out and saw Craig sprinting to the corner, so kind of a broken play.”

Eastern was on its heels from the get-go. Sensational junior quarterback Travis Lulay waltzed the Bobcats down the field on their first possession, completing 4 of 5 passes for 72 yards, including a 23-yard TD strike to Eddie Sullivan.

By halftime Lulay had completed 16 of 21 passes for 225 yards. Running back Justin Domineck had another 117 on the ground. That’s 342 yards of total offense and a 21-10 lead.

“Our calls weren’t matching up very well with their calls,” EWU linebacker Joey Cwik said. “And when they had a no-huddle offense it was easy for them to hear what we were calling.”

The Bobcats opened the second half with a 30-yard scramble on the first play followed by a perfect 41-yard scoring pass to Ricky Gatewood on the third play.

That made it 31-10 and the rout appeared to be on, except the Eagles’ big-play offense came to life.

“I thought we had a long road to go,” Wulff said. “My only concern was how we get back in the game. It helped that they didn’t run the ball a lot and that gave us a lot of clock.”

There was a one-play drive, Reggie Witherspoon’s 58-yard scamper on a draw play that made it 31-16 when the extra point was missed.

Then there was a three-play drive that ended when Meyer found Kimble down the right sideline for a 29-yard score, making it 34-23.

And, finally, a one-play drive, a 48-yard strike to Kimble, who was again in man-to-man coverage on the right side. That made it 37-30 with 1:59 still to go in the third quarter.

“At first they were just playing me as a decoy, trying to figure out what they were playing. It took a while for us to get going,” Kimble said. “We didn’t do anything different, Montana State did something different. They started pressing me up. The quarterback just read it right and started throwing fade balls.”

Another long possession by the Bobcats ended on a failed fourth-down gamble. A lost fumble by Dezmon Cole on the MSU 2 wiped out a 75-yard drive.

The defense stepped up and a short punt gave Eastern the ball at the 38. A Meyer bootleg got the ball to the MSU 2 but he had to leave the game with a slight injury. Chris Peerboom handed twice to Kefu Tofu for the score that tied the game with 8:13 to play.

Both teams had to punt before Lulay and the Cardiac Cats lived up to their name, going 74 yards in seven plays, taking just more than 2 minutes and scoring on a 32-yard pass to Gatewood with 1:17 remaining.

But Meyer wasn’t done, going 76 yards in eight plays, the big one a 35-yard strike to Kimble, who finished with 10 catches for 196 yards.