CHENEY — The most dynamic decade in Eastern Washington University football history officially came to a close on Saturday Feb. 29 with the awards ceremony honoring the 2019 team.
The team, which finished 7-5 overall and 6-2 in the Big Sky Conference in a three-way tie for third, missed the postseason, but racked up some impressive statistics in head coach Aaron Best’s third season.
Eastern also closed with its 13th-straight winning season and went undefeated at home on the red turf at Roos Field for the second-straight year.
Helping Eastern’s offense finish No. 1 in the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision in 2019, senior center Spencer Blackburn and junior quarterback Eric Barriere were among the Eagle football players honored at the Showalter Auditorium on the EWU campus.
Barriere was selected as EWU’s Offensive Player of the Year and Blackburn was the recipient of the Golden EKG (Eastern Kind of Guy) Award.
Senior tackle Dylan Ledbetter was selected as the Defensive Player of the Year, and freshman Seth Harrison from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, won the nod on special teams. Harrison and cornerback Tre Weed were picked as the team’s Freshmen of the Year.
Eastern “Teams” Player of the Year honors went to tight end Blake Gobel on offense, defensive lineman Brock Harrison on defense and wide receiver Jordan Purvis on special teams as recipient of “The Nail” award. Gobel is from Banks, Ore., Harrison is from Ridgefield, Wash., and Purvis is from Napavine, Wash.
Also Saturday, senior tight end Jayce Gilder was given the Pat Roberts Memorial Award for achieving academic and athletic excellence.
Receiving team captains awards from the 2019 season were five seniors — Gilder, Blackburn, Barriere, Ledbetter and linebacker Jack Sendelbach.
In addition, lifelong Cheney resident Judy Crabb received the team’s Tom Oswald Memorial Award for her 40 years of service as secretary in the Eastern athletic department.
Other honors won during the 2019 season were recognized and presented at the event, which concluded with the introduction and recognition of Eastern’s 20 seniors. Those players finished the 2019 season with 791 games worth of experience and 364 career starts. They helped Eastern go 38-14 overall (73.1 percent) and 27-5 (84.4 percent) in Big Sky Conference play in the last four seasons.
In a 10-season span that began in 2010, Eastern won its first national championship —coincidently in 2010 when the audacious red artificial turf made its debut — claimed six Big Sky championships, advanced to a second title game in 2019 and four trips to the FCS final-four.
Also in that decade Eastern surpassed Montana as the Big Sky’s most successful program.
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