Young Eagles step up

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Under normal conditions maybe there wouldn’t be much reason for the 14th-ranked football team to be worried facing a two-win team.

But conditions aren’t normal at Eastern Washington and the Eagles had plenty of reason to worry about Sacramento State.

And why not?

The Hornets had a solid running game, a strong-armed and mobile quarterback and several quality receivers. They may not be the equal of the Eastern stars, but against that Eagle defense …

Eastern only had four healthy defensive linemen available on Saturday, three first-year players and a transfer to go with two first-year starters in the secondary.

But those young linemen came of age on Saturday as the Eagles rolled to a 45-17 road victory at Hornet Stadium.

They limited the Hornets to 289 yards, while the offense took the pressure off with a 566-yard day.

“I felt we played pretty good, I felt we played real good actually,” first-year defensive tackle Gene Piffero said. “We got off well, used our hands well, pushed the O-line back.”

Starting tackles Harrison Nikolao (chest bruise) and Keith Grennan (shoulder) and end Johnny Hanson (back) made the trip despite not practicing all week, but only Nikolao played, sparingly.

That left true freshman Greg Peach, sophomores Lance Witherspoon and Piffero, both first-year players, and Missouri transfer George Lane.

“They played pretty solid at times,” defensive line coach Malik Roberson said. “That second half there they were challenged a little bit. We didn’t have a lot of depth, guys had to play a little tired on that one drive, but they bounced back. They got pressure on the quarterback. It was a great job by those young guys. They’re growing.”

The Eagles used more three-man fronts with Jake Young joining Joey Cwik and David Eneberg at linebacker.

The four down-linemen combined for 10 tackles, four by Witherspoon and they harried three Sac quarterbacks into a 16-for-39 performance.

“We all had to suck it up,” Piffero said. “We knew that we were short so we all had to suck it up and play as many plays as we could.”

Head coach Paul Wulff was pleased.

“Considering all the kids we’ve had out, they did a nice job,” he said. “Credit our defensive staff and those kids playing as hard as they played.

“We had three (first-year players) on the line. They put on shoulder pads in college for the first time in August.”