Borden reaches goal

Just moments after picking off the errant pass and cradling the football into his arm, Makai Borden took a quick glance downfield at the end zone and thought, “I can get there from here.”

Forget that his desired destination was 85 yards away. And forget that 11 angry Northern Arizona players had just refocused their collective attention on making sure he didn’t reach it.

This was all about long-repressed instincts, and whether they would resurface with Borden in such desperate need of their services once again.

Fortunately, for Borden and his Eastern Washington University teammates, they did.

“It was a like a flashback, or something,” Borden recalled of last Saturday’s first-half interception against NAU. “Once I got the ball in my hands, it brought me back to high school, when I was a pretty good running back, and to some of the long runs I made.

“And it felt great.”

So great, in fact, that EWU’s undersized fifth-year senior linebacker refused to let the moment die until he had scrambled those 85 yards to the end zone and scored the first touchdown of his college career – and an important one at that, considering the Eagles (8-2) went on to edge the Lumberjacks 49-45 and earn an at-large berth in the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision playoffs. They will face Stephen F. Austin (9-2) in a first-round Saturday showdown in Nagodoches, Texas.

The only downside to Borden’s first career pick-six was that he was too exhausted – and in too much pain – following his long run to properly celebrate with his teammates.

“I wasn’t able to do anything once I got in the end zone,” explained Borden, who was playing with a broken rib he had sustained a week earlier in the Eagles’ 41-28 non-conference win at Southern Utah. “I couldn’t catch my breath, and I was just standing there gasping. But everyone kept running up to me trying to head butt me and hug me and all of that stuff.

“I really wanted to celebrate with them, but I had to say, ‘You guys go ahead and celebrate for me, because I sure can’t do it myself.

‘And take it easy with the hugs.’ ”

Making such a big play in such an important game was admittedly a huge thrill for the 5-foot-11, 207-pound Borden, who was a first-team 4A all-state running back as a senior at Puyallup High School. Not only did it stir up fond memories of his glory days as a ballcarrier, but it gave him a belated chance to erase the disappointment of having had to watch the Eagles’ last playoff game from the sidelines with a broken bone in his right foot.

That happened in 2007 during Borden’s sophomore season.

Eastern, after receiving an at-large playoff bid, went on to tag No. 3-ranked McNeese State with a 44-15 first-round loss, with Borden getting involved in a couple of tackles, despite playing with the broken bone.

It was an injury he had sustained three games earlier and was still learning to deal with.

But the following weekend, a day prior to the Eagles’ second-round matchup with fifth-ranked Appalachian State, doctors advised the Eastern training staff to hold Borden out of the game – even though he had made the trip to Boone, N.C., expecting to play – for fear of having him do greater damage to his foot.

So Borden spent Game Day watching Appalachian State’s sophomore quarterback Armanti Edwards flummox Eastern’s defense with his startling speed and strong arm in a 38-35 win that ended the Eagles’ season.

Borden remembers being a bit miffed by being denied the opportunity to contribute.

“I wasn’t upset with the doctors, but, in a sense I kind of was,” he recalled. “Ultimately, they know more than I do, I know. But I figured I had already played on it for four games, so my thinking was, ‘What’s one more game going to do? How much worse can it really get?’

“And the fact that I was there and my pads were so close I could have strapped it up and made it happen made it even more frustrating. I really wanted to be out there helping my team and grinding it with everybody else.”

Borden admits he might have taken the whole playoff thing a little too much for granted back then, figuring with all of the young talent the Eagles had, they were destined to become an annual fixture in the FCS playoffs.

But the next year, following an off-season coaching change that saw Beau Baldwin replace Paul Wulff, Eastern staggered to a 6-5 finish and failed to get even a midseason whiff of a playoff bid.

It was a sobering development for all involved with EWU’s program. And it gave Borden and his teammates a new appreciation of just how precious a postseason playoff bid can be.

“With this being the last stretch and go-round for me, words can’t begin to describe how grateful I am for another opportunity,” said Borden, who ranks third on the team in tackles this fall with 77. I’m thankful, not only to the coaches but to the other players on our team, as well.

“The coaches can implement what they want, but it’s the players who have to carry it out. And I feel, as a team, we’ve done everything we’ve been asked to do, and then some, and I can’t thank the team enough for this second chance.”