Explosion: Eastern Oregon 72, MSU-Northern 30

In the third quarter of Saturday's showdown with the Eastern Oregon Mountaineers, the Montana State University-Northern offense scored more points than they had in a single game all season long.

Unfortunately, Eastern Oregon was even more explosive.

In what was a wild second half, the Mounties used huge special teams plays and an unstoppable Jase Billingsley at running back to simply outscore a much-improved MSU-N offense, in what turned out to be a 72-30 win on a sunny day at Blue Pony Stadium.

In the third quarter alone, the Lights, who dropped to 0-7 in the Frontier Conference, and Mounties, who earned just their third win of the season, combined for eight touchdowns, and overall, the team's put up a combined 70 points in the second half alone.

And while the end result wasn't what the Lights were looking for, head coach Aaron Christensen saw plenty of positives.

"Offensively, we did play better today," Christensen said. "Even in the first half, you could see, we were hitting some plays, and we knew we were going to be better today. So, I thought we were really improved offensively, and now we need to build on that."

Not only did the MSU-N offense come to life Saturday, but for the second straight week, the Lights got off to a much better start.

Northern forced an early turnover, and the MSU-N defense played stellar as they forced the Mounties to a 0-0 draw in the first stanza. Things unraveled a bit halfway through the second quarter as EOU quarterback Zach Bartlow engineered three scoring drives in the final seven minutes of the half. But, just when it looked like EOU was going to slam the door on the Lights, Malcolm Manuel picked off Bartlow with just seconds left in the half, and Northern turned that into a 40-yard Jaime Tomasco field goal that made the score 21-3 at intermission.

"I thought, defensively, we started the game off really well," Christensen said. "We felt good about some things we were doing defensively, because they're (Mounties) an explosive team."

While the first half had plenty of excitement, and the Lights did feel good about where they were, no one could have foreseen what was going to happen in the third period.

EOU's return game, in particular, wide receiver Calvin Connors, was a force Northern couldn't stop all day long, and he took the opening kickoff of the second half 89 yards to the house to put the Mounties in front 27-3. That happened in the blink of an eye, but on the very next offensive snap, Northern was in the endzone.

On the first play from scrimmage of the second half, Zach McKinley took a Jess Krahn handoff right through the heart of the EOU defense, and rambled 68 yards for a score. And just like that, two TDs were on the board and there was still 14 minutes left in the period.

The team's kept answering each other. Bartlow threw a 44-yard TD to Billingsley with 12:21 left in the period, and after another huge punt return by Connors, Billingsley added a three-yard run to make the score 41-10. However, on the very next play, the Lights struck again as Krahn found Jake Messerly over the middle, and the junior speedster did the rest, going 87 yards untouched to make the score 41-17 with 7:44 still left.

"We knew we had that in us, we knew we had it all season," Messerly said of Northern's offensive emergence in the third stanza. "Jess just finally blew up and had a huge game. The O-line did a great job protecting him, and we were able to make some big plays. So that felt great to finally get a few of those."

As good as the big plays felt, there was still tons of time following Messerly's score, and EOU was back in the endzone less than a minute later when Billingsley answered with a 54-yard run. That made the score 48-17, but right back came the Lights. MSU-N put together one of its best drives of the year, including two huge catches by Seth Roemmele, and the finishing touch was a 13-yard strike to Messerly for his second score of the game.

"It was nice to see us go out and getting going offensively," Christensen said. "We scored some points, we made some big plays and that was good. But, in the second half, we needed to play much better on defense and on special teams than we did. But again, I thought we got better today, and that's big for us."

Special teams was a bone of contention all day for the Lights, and it reared its head again in the fourth quarter.

Marc David started the final period with a short field goal, and Bartlow scored on a keeper with 7:55 left to make the score 58-24. Then, after a leaping touchdown catch by MSU-N sophomore tight end Kagen Khameneh, in which he held onto the ball while taking a huge hit from two EOU defenders, the Mounties came right back with a 95-yard TD return on the ensuing kickoff. EOU would also block a punt late in the game, which set up its final score, a short A.J. Prom touchdown.

"Special teams was a factor today," Christensen said. "We gave up too many big plays on special teams today. That's an area we have to get better."

But in other parts of the game, the Lights indeed got better. Northern scored 27 points in the second half, when it came in averaging just six points per game. The Lights tallied 458 yards of offense with Krahn throwing for 279 yards, four scores and no interceptions. McKinley was also his usual huge self with 173 yards on just 18 carries, while Messerly caught five balls for 106 yards, and Roemmele had his best day as a Light, with four grabs for 111 yards. Khameneh added 48 yards on five snags.

"It felt really good to make some plays as an offense," Messerly said. "And this team doesn't give up. This team is a family, we love to compete, and we're not going to give up fighting."

Northern did fight, but EOU was just too explosive. The Mounties came to Havre slumping, but had a breakout game on offense. EOU rolled up 647 yards of offense, with Bartlow throwing for 325 and rushing for another 94. Billingsley racked up 135 yards on the ground and caught six passes for 81 yards, while Connors had nine catches for 148 yards to go along with a staggering 142 punt return yards.

Defensively, MSU-N, which surrendered 322 rushing yards, was paced by Garrett Jericoff's 12 tackles and one tackle for loss. Tyler Craig also had another monster game for the Lights with seven stops, a sack and a forced fumble, while Jordan Brusio also had a sack and five tackles.

Though it turned out to be another long day for the MSU-N defense, and the Lights as a whole, from where they have been, and even where they started on Saturday afternoon, there's no question Christensen felt like his team took some positive steps. And, he said, with the bright spots against EOU, if they can put more of those on the field, they will get to where they are trying to go.

"We're moving in the right direction," Christensen said. "You saw that today. We played better on defense at times, and on offense, I thought we were much better today. So you can see it going in the right direction. It's just being able to put it all together for four quarters. We haven't done that yet. And in this league, you have to. Eastern Oregon is a very good team, and we just weren't consistent enough to stay with them today. But we are making progress. You can see it on film, and you could see it today."

Northern will look to get even further when the Lights head to reeling Carroll College for Halloween matchup with the Fighting Saints this Saturday. Northern's final home game will come Nov. 14 against Rocky Mountain College.