Eastern starts strong but sputters with fumbles, penalties
Eastern Washington's Kendrick Bourne carefully gets into the end zone for the first of his two touchdowns in the Eagles' 41-9 football win over visiting Montana Western University at Roos Field. EWU travels to Seattle to face the University of Washington this Saturday.
As expected, the Eastern Washington University football team handled their National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics brethren from Montana Western University with ease in Saturday night's 41-9 win at Roos Field before a crowd of 9,116.
On the surface there were some impressive numbers. Eastern converted on 75-percent of third-down opportunities and were immensely effective in passing, a shade shy of 83 percent completion rate that helped generate nearly 600 yards of offense.
But when presented with the question as to how he viewed the one-sided victory, EWU head coach Beau Baldwin was quite frank.
"We were sloppy," he said "I don't make too many judgments until I watch film, but I think there were a lot of sloppy errors." That sloppiness expressed itself in numbers like 100 yards in penalties and six fumbles, three of which were lost.
"We have a long way to go if we want to go to Seattle and compete," Baldwin added. Seattle's where the next challenge for Eastern comes in a Saturday noon kickoff at Husky Stadium in a nonconference contest against Pac-12 Washington.
The Huskies come off their own sputtering start in the era of new head coach Chris Petersen following a 17-16 win over the University of Hawaii last Saturday in Honolulu.
Eastern (2-0) and now No. 2-ranked in new polls, wasted little time jumping all over the Bulldogs (1-1) and scoring on their first three possessions. It took just 1 minute, 24 seconds for the Eagle to go 92 yards with Mario Brown scoring on a 2-yard run. Brown's 50-yard run on the drive's second play moved Eastern away from its own endzone. Brown finished with 83 yards on nine carries.
Kendrick Bourne capped a 10-play, 68-yard drive with his 3-yard touchdown catch from Vernon Adams with 3:12 to play in the first quarter. On the next Eastern possession, Adams found Cory Mitchell completely uncovered in the left side of the end zone for a 29-yard scoring play and a 21-0 lead with 12:33 remaining in the half.
The Bulldogs had the ball just five plays, got to their own 27 before a 28-yard punt gave the Eagles their best starting position for a drive at the EWU 45. It took just one play, an Adams to Shaq Hill 55-yarder, for the Eagles to lead 27-0 after a missed extra point.
The flubbed point-after was a look into the future of the game where mistakes seemed to be a regular happening on both sides. Eastern had drives halted by lost fumbles by Mitchell as the first half wound down, and Hill on the Eagles first possession of the second half.
The Bulldogs got on the board with a 34-yard field goal from West Valley of Spokane's Nick Brown with 2:27 remaining in the half.
Eastern got the ball back after just five plays when Miquiyah Zamora stripped the ball out of the hands of MW's Sam Rutherford and Todd Raynes recovered. Mitchell had his second score of the game 2:08 later on a 30-yard pass from Adams who finished completing 28 of 31 throws for 370 yards. Mitchell had 11 catches for 123 yards on the chilly fall-like evening.
After the Bulldogs scored on a Tyler Hulse to George Sherwood pass with 6:35 to play in the third, Adams threw his fifth and final touchdown 15 yards to Bourne 2:12 later for the final margin.
Jordan West came on in relief of Adams from there. In the final four series of the game he completed 5 of 9 passes for 48 yards. Another addition to the game was running back Cody Hecker from Sandpoint, Idaho who had five carries for 49 yards, including a crowd-approving 25-yard run where he hurdled an initial defender.
Getting playing time for those down the depth chart was important for Eastern and Baldwin, especially considering a number of front-liners - receiver Cooper Kupp, linebacker Ronnie Hamlin, center T.J. Boatright and running back Quincy Forte - were all sidelined Saturday.
"It is huge for our depth," Baldwin said. "You never know because some of those guys we got in could be starting at some point, which is part of the reason you want to be able to do that."
The EWU defense allowed just two scores on 13 Montana Western possessions. Zamora led Eastern with a total of 10 tackles with true freshman Marcus Saugen seven. Isaiah Jenkins and Rashad Wadood each had an interception for the Eagles.
Eastern will follow the UW game with the first of two bye weeks this season and return to action Sept. 20 at Montana State. They are at U.C. Davis the following Saturday and return home Oct. 4 versus Idaho State.
Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].
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