Silent Night: Mounties 52, Lights 31

The Montana State University-Northern Lights were fired up for their rare nighttime showdown with the Eastern Oregon Mounties. But, before darkness even fell upon Blue Pony Stadium, the Lights found themselves way behind, and as a result, there was no catching up.

Thanks to two quick touchdowns in the first four minutes, No. 16 Eastern Oregon made the Lights play catch-up the rest of the way in what turned into a 52-31 win for the Mounties Saturday night at Blue Pony Stadium.

The loss dropped Northern to 1-4 in the Frontier Conference, while EOU snapped a two-game losing streak, improving to 3-2 on the season.

And the quick deficit, with Zach Bartlow throwing a touchdown pass to Calvin Connors, then rushing for another just two minutes later, was a start Northern head coach Aaron Christensen said his team just couldn't afford.

"That's the thing, you can't come out and get behind and expect to beat a team as good as Eastern Oregon," Christensen said. "You can't wait until the second or third quarter to start executing, and that was the difference tonight. Eastern Oregon executed for a full four quarters, and we didn't. We weren't able to put a complete four quarters together."

The Lights had their moments, no doubt. But every time they started to execute, EOU had the answer.

Down 14-0 midway through the first, Northern got a spark when Jett Robertson ripped off a 61-yard kickoff return, which MSU-N eventually turned into a Tommy Langley field goal. But once again, the Mounties needed less than two minutes to answer as they covered 37 yards in just four plays to go back up 21-3 at the end of the first.

The Northern defense got a stop on EOU's next possession, thanks in large part to a sack by a blitzing David N'Guessa, but, most of the night, the Lights didn't have an answer for Bartlow, who took the Mounties on another great drive, one that ended with an Alfred Gross TD, and EOU was up 28-3 with 6:45 left in the half.

But, as Northern has often done this season, the Lights showed resilience. MSU-N put a great drive together with two big runs by first-time starting quarterback Caleb McLaren and a 17-yard scamper by Zach McKinley. But inside the EOU 8-yard-line, the Lights couldn't get it in the end zone on four tries. That left EOU with the ball with just 1:33 in the half, but with the Mounties back up against their own goal line, the Lights caught a break when Bartlow fumbled and freshman DeQuincy Bergen recovered it in the endzone. It was one of two fumble recoveries for the Lights on the night, and it helped the Lights stay within striking distance at 28-10.

"We made some good plays tonight," Christensen said. "It wasn't our effort. We played hard, the guys played hard and never quit. But we just didn't execute well enough to come all the way back."

For a few moments early in the second half, it looked like the Lights might just come back. Northern took the opening kickoff of the half and marched it 81 yards on 11 plays, all runs by McKinley, Robertson and McLaren. The drive finished with a sweeping score by Robertson, and the Lights had life down 28-17 with a ton of time left.

However, time was something EOU rarely needed to put distance between itself and the Lights. The Mounties answered the Robertson score with two fast-paced drives. The first spanned 65 yards in just six plays and ended with Bartlow hitting Josh Richards for a TD. The second covered 89 yards in just four plays, ending with Bartlow's fourth scoring pass of the night.

And just like that, the Lights had went from down 11 points to down an insurmountable 42-17 with just the fourth quarter left to play. McKinley would punch in two TDs in the final stanza, as the Lights never gave up, but it was a case of just being too far behind.

"We gave up too many big plays," Christensen said. "When you play a team like Eastern Oregon, with a quarterback like they have, and with so many athletes like they have, you've got to tackle well, and I don't think we tackled well tonight. You have to get guys on the ground right at the point of contact, and if you don't, their athletes will hurt you, and that hurt us tonight.

The Mounties did hurt the Lights with big plays. Bartlow was sensational, throwing for 318 yards and rushing for 41 more, while accounting for five scores. EOU racked up 539 yards of offense, including 221 on the ground, the most the Lights have given up this season, as Gross and A.J. Prom each rushed for 54 yards. Richards also hurt the Lights with four catches for 89 yards.

Defensively, the Lights got a breakout game from Bergen, who had 10 tackles and a fumble recovery. Sam Schuler had a sack, and Garet Fowler had nine tackles, while Tyler Craig and Corey Lee each had seven. N'Guessa added six stops to go along with his sack.

On the other side of the ball, McKinley had 99 yards on 22 carries, while also catching three passes for 31 yards. McLaren, playing in his first game in two years, threw for 118 yards, including two passes each to Mike Cocke and Dylan Rychtarik, but he was equally as effective with his feet, as he rushed for 58 yards on 16 carries.

"I thought we ran the ball much better today," Christensen said. "I thought our passing game showed some good things to. Caleb did a nice job for making his first start. So, offensively, we did some good things, but we still just didn't have enough consistency. We had too many plays that were for negative yards, or we where we just didn't execute like we're supposed too. And that's the thing, again, you can't execute some of the time and expect to win. You have to execute for a full four quarters.

"Eastern Oregon is a very good football team, and you have to give them credit," he continued. "But we also expect to win every game, and in order to do that, you have to play a complete game, and I don't think we did that tonight."

Northern will get a chance to play a full four quarters when the Lights travel to Rocky Mountain College this Saturday. The Lights lost to the Battlin' Bears in their season-opener back in August. Northern will be back at home on Oct. 22 when the Lights face Montana Tech for homecoming.