Box Score

LA GRANDE – There was nothing all that aesthetically pleasing, neither on the field nor on the stat sheet, about the Southern Oregon University football team's 35-31 win Saturday afternoon at Eastern Oregon's Community Stadium.

That spotless 3-0 record doesn't look so bad though.

The 22nd-ranked Raiders (2-0 Frontier Conference) didn't take their first lead until Melvin Mason (Vacaville, Calif./Vacaville) finished a 16-play, 85-yard drive on a two-yard touchdown run with 2 minutes, 11 seconds remaining. Austin Dodge (Vancouver, Wash./Skyview), the two-time Frontier Offensive MVP, threw three costly interceptions. And the SOU defense survived a couple major scares that nearly gave the Mountaineers (1-1) the game on their last possession.

And when it was over, the Raiders had won their third consecutive game to start the season for the first time in 13 years.

They'll try to do one better at Ashland High next Saturday at the expense of College of Idaho, which improved to 2-0 Saturday with an upset of Montana Western. That Frontier contest, which will be the first in 46 years between the teams, will kick off at 1 p.m.

The Mountaineers, who started the season one spot out of the NAIA Top 25, were playing their first Frontier game and had been off the last two weeks. They were helped to a convenient start, needing to go just 22 yards for a TD on their first drive after Matt Gayman intercepted Dodge.

The teams swapped scores the rest of the day. The Raiders initially responded with a 71-yard march that ended with Dodge's 29-yard TD pass to Dylan Young (Salem, Ore./North Salem). SOU receiver Sean McShane (El Paso, Texas/Franklin) started the second quarter with a 56-yard score on a fly sweep, and Dodge knotted the score going into halftime, 21-all, with an 18-yard keeper.

Eastern quarterback Zach Bartlow did most of his damage during the first half, where he threw all three of his TD passes. He finished the afternoon 23-for-38 for 262 yards, hitting Jace Billingsley 11 times for 130 yards. Bartlow also netted 58 yards on 10 rushes.

Dodge completed 29 of 46 attempts for 323 yards. But his first attempt of the second half was also picked off by Gayman, who got to the ball near the sideline and ran it home for a 28-21 Eastern lead.

Young caught nine balls for 96 yards, and Ryan Retzlaff (Medford, Ore./South Medford) eight for 92. Jeremy Scottow (Medford, Ore./North Medford) had four big receptions, too, including a five-yard grab in the middle of the end zone to tie the game on third down midway through the third quarter.

The next Raider possession resulted in an end-zone interception, and the one after that their first punt of the day. After Marc David converted a 37-yard field goal to put EOU up again with nine minutes left, it would take SOU's longest drive of the season – 6 minutes, 49 seconds – to finally claim a lead.

Dodge had to complete three critical passes on that last drive – one on 3rd-and-20, another on 4th-and-3, and the last on 3rd-and-4 on Eastern's 16. Three straight Mason rushes for eight yards made it count.

Mason had 75 yards on 17 carries, and Keegan Lawrence (Sherwood, Ore./Sherwood) netted 55 yards on the ground and 34 receiving.

The SOU defense helped the Raiders to a 530-373 advantage in yardage. The Mountaineers made it to SOU's 39 on their last possession but Bartlow's final heave to the end zone was knocked away from Justin Hernandez, and the one before that was underthrown in the end zone to Billingsley.

Julius Rucker (Portland, Ore./Westview) got his hands on SOU's lone interception. Laurence Calcagno (Canby, Ore./Canby) was in on a game-high 11 tackles, Daniel Breaux (Greenfield, Calif./Greenfield) had five solo and two assisted, and Alex Stork (Klamath Falls, Ore./Klamath Union) was credited with six tackles and a sack.

The Raiders have won seven of the last eight in the series against Eastern. They benefited from a reversal in fortune compared to the last matchup, Nov. 9 of last season in Ashland, when Eastern took its first lead with 1:53 left on Billingsley's receiver-pass to Hernandez for a 38-37 win.