Seniors triumph in home finale

It was, after all, their day.

So the 18 Eastern Washington University seniors who were honored prior to Saturday’s final home game of the 2008 season made sure it was a day to remember.

Led by senior defensive linemen Greg Peach, Lance Witherspoon and Jason Belford – and a couple of unlikely senior heroes on the other side of the ball – the Eagles clawed their way back from a 13-point first-half deficit to dump Northern Arizona 28-13 in a Big Sky Conference football game witnessed by a Woodward Field crowd of 4,902.

Peach and Witherspoon celebrated Senior Day with two sacks each and Belford added another as Eastern (5-5, 4-3 Big Sky) overcame a spate of first-half mistakes to keep its hopes for a winning season alive heading into Saturday’s finale against league-leading Weber State in Ogden, Utah.

A pair of senior role players, backup wide receiver Shane Hoffman and backup running back A.J. Jimerson, added to the feel-good story by scoring second-half touchdowns that complemented the 2-yard touchdown run by fellow senior and starting running back Dale Morris late in the first half.

“It really couldn’t have gone any better than it went today,” said Peach, the nation’s sack leader, who increased his single-season school record to 18 and his career total to 351/2, which is also a school record. “Lance, Bel and me, that’s what we came out to do, was to have fun and make plays, and all of us did that.

“And the seniors on offense really balled today, too. That was fun to watch. You couldn’t have scripted this game any better.”

Eastern’s defense was impressive in limiting the Lumberjacks (6-5, 4-4) to a minus-1 yard rushing and holding an opponent to less than 20 points for the fifth consecutive game – a first for the Eagles since joining the ranks of what is now called the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision in 1984.

Belford said his position coach, Ryan Sawyer, told his seniors to just go out and take everything in on a day that was supposed to be special for them all.

“And I felt like we did a great job of doing that, all across the board,” Belford said. “We all had our moments in the game, and we all stuck together, even when it looked rough at the beginning. That’s just kind of been who we are – a bunch of guys who grind it out and work for each other, and I think that’s why we’ve been successful.

“You play because you love the guy next to you.”

EWU coach Beau Baldwin said he was proud of his team’s approach, especially after falling behind by 13 when NAU took advantage of a Hoffman fumble midway through the second quarter to tack a 1-yard touchdown run by Deonte Williams on to the two field goals Robbie Dehaze had kicked earlier.

“We stayed with it,” Baldwin said. “We got down 13-0, we were making mistakes and everything, probably, that could go wrong was going wrong. But we stayed with it, came together both offensively and defensively and made some plays to get back into it late in the first half.”

Nearly overshadowed by Eastern’s defensive effort was another big day by junior quarterback Matt Nichols, who shook off a couple of first-half interceptions to throw for 346 yards and two touchdowns – a 5-yarder to junior Tony Davis that put the Eagles ahead 14-13 in the third quarter and the 35-yarder to Hoffman later in the period.

It was the sixth 300-yard passing game of the season and 12th of his career for Nichols, who saw his streak of 34 consecutive starts snapped when Baldwin elected to give senior backup Alex Smart his first career start.

Smart took just two snaps on Eastern’s first possession, however, before giving way to Nichols, who connected on 25 of 42 passes and also rushed for a team-high 29 yards.

“Matt did a great job,” Baldwin said. “Even despite a few balls not going his way in that first half, he came back, kept fighting and, I thought, played a really solid football game.”