Tight-knit Eagles trio takes final bow

They arrived at Eastern Washington University with diverse backgrounds and dramatically different personalities.

As they look back on the years they’ve spent together as teammates, playing side by side on Eastern’s defensive line, seniors Greg Peach, Jason Belford and Lance Witherspoon still marvel at the strength of the unbreakable bond they have forged.

“I basically love those other two guys a lot,” said Belford, a 6-foot-1, 240-pounder from Tacoma, who mans the left side of the Eagles’ talented defensive front. “And they feel the same way about me. It’s a crazy bond we have, considering we’re all so different.

“I never thought we’d build all that close a relationship when we first met each other, but we did. And it’s been a blast playing with those two. I just wish it didn’t have to end.”

But like any run, in any sport, it does.

This afternoon, with just two games left in their college careers, the three young men who have been the driving force in EWU’s defense for the last three years will be among 18 seniors making their final appearance at Woodward Field, when the Eagles (4-5, 3-3 Big Sky Conference) entertain Northern Arizona (6-4, 4-3) at 2:05.

“I really haven’t thought much about it yet,” said Peach, a 6-2, 250-pounder from Vancouver, who leads the nation with 16 sacks this fall and owns both the single-season and career (331/2) school records in that same category. “But when I look back on it, it’s been a crazy ride.

“When I first got here, I was real small and just trying to get through, make myself productive and make the coaches want me to be here. Then a couple of years go by and you realize, ‘OK, I can do this,’ and things start falling in place. And looking back now, I can say I’ve had a real blast – and that the last two years have been the best of my life.”

Peach and Witherspoon, a 6-2, 275-pounder from Federal Way, Wash., arrived on campus in 2005, and both were rushed into action as true freshmen that fall because of an assortment of injuries on Eastern’s defensive front – including a calf injury that sidelined Belford, a redshirt freshman and starter at the time, for the final nine games of the season.

The following year, all three became regulars and eventually developed – along with fellow senior and defensive tackle Shawn Powell, who has been sidelined all year after sustaining an off-season knee injury – into one of the Eagles’ most effective defensive fronts in recent memory.

Northern Colorado coach Scott Downing, whose Bears lost to Eastern 31-16 in Greeley, Colo., last weekend, said the Eagles’ line “might be the best defensive front we’ve faced all year long – including Purdue’s, because they play so hard, they play as a unit and they’re all really, really good football players.”

NAU coach Jerome Souers, who will have to deal with Peach and his senior sidekicks this afternoon, echoed Downing’s assessment.

“They absolutely dominated us last year,” Souers said. “They all play really strong, intense and fundamentally sound football, and we’re going to have our hands full with those guys again.”

Peach credits much of the success Eastern’s defensive line has had to the friendships and trust that have developed between him and his senior teammates.

“We’re pretty much inseparable off the field, too,” he said. “The three of us are best friends, and we hang out all the time and do things together. That’s a huge key to our on-the-field success, too, because you don’t want to play with guys you don’t meld with.

“With these guys, it’s so comfortable out there. We’ll talk to each other before the play happens and set up each other to make plays. It’s nice, when I look down the line at those guys, to know that they’re going to do their jobs and I’m going to do my job – and that somebody is going to make a play.”

As for today’s pregame introductions of seniors, neither Peach nor Belford know how they will react.

“As a defensive lineman, I don’t think you can get too emotional before a game,” said Peach, who will have his parents, both sets of grandparents and several aunts and uncles in attendance. “I just think it’s nice that all of my relatives can come to see me play, because they’re the ones I love to have watching me when I play football.”

Belford, who was raised by his grandmother, was disappointed to learn she won’t make it to his final home game. But he said he will be fine walking into Woodward Field for the last time flanked by a favorite uncle and his girlfriend.