Comeback Mounted

For one half of football, the normally explosive Eastern Oregon Mountaineers looked anything but, while the Montana State University-Northern Lights dominated.

For another half however, the Mounties looked almost unstoppable.

EOU overcame a dominating first half in which the Lights led 34-7 by outscoring Northern 32-2 in the second half en route to a dramatic 39-36 come-from-behind win Saturday afternoon at Blue Pony Stadium in Havre.

The thrilling victory by EOU spoiled Northern's senior day and snapped MSU-N's current two-game winning streak. The Mounties also kept their winning streak over the Lights in tact. EOU has now beaten MSU-N five straight times.

"It's really frustrating," Northern head coach Mark Samson said. "We played so well in all three phases in the first half. And we just played terrible in the second half. It felt like we were just going through the motions out there.

"Maybe it's because we were a little complacent because of how well we were playing, or maybe it's because we are such a young team and we haven't been in a situation like that in a long time, where we were up so big, coaches and players alike," he added. "But whatever it was, we just played very poorly in the second half and that's very disappointing."

While MSU-N knew how explosive the Mounties' offense could be, no one could be prepared for what ensued in in the second half of Saturday's tilt, despite the fact EOU pulled off a similar comeback against MSU-N just last month.

However, with the Lights leading 34-7 at intermission, and dominating on defense — MSU-N turned the Mounties over six times in the first half, including a pair of interceptions by Seth Wildung, a Northern senior, and forced fumbles by Will Andrews, Nick Weller and Travis Hjort, and the Mounties didn't look like they could pull off yet another miracle finish.

But that's exactly what happened.

EOU junior quarterback Chris Ware threw touchdown passes to Kirk Miller at the start of the third quarter and again at the start of the fourth. That seemed innocent enough, but the Mounties were just getting started. In between those two Ware-to-Miller connections, the Mounties got a third-quarter interception of MSU-N's Derek Lear, and a Lear fumble late in the third which led to a Kevin Sampson one-yard TD run, his second of the day. Sampson also scored from one yard away to start the game, but his second score pulled EOU to within 36-21, as the fourth quarter began. And all Northern could muster was a safety on a Ware fumble in the endzone during that stretch.

Still, when Miller caught his second score of the day to open the fourth period, the Lights were in front 36-28.

But Ware and the Mounties weren't done. A Nick Knell field goal sliced the lead even further, and while Northern's offense continued to struggle, the Mounties kept coming back, until they finally took the lead on yet another bomb to Miller. The game-winning score came at 2:59 when Ware hit Miller from 44 yards out. And the comeback was complete.

"Northern is a good team, and they played great all day," said Ware, who threw for over 300 yards and rushed for 111 more. "But we have faith in each other, and we just had to keep fighting. Things didn't go well for us in the first half. I wasn't finding guys or making plays. But the guys kept believing in me, the guys stayed with me and because we believe in each other, we have that trust, we were able to make plays in the second half."

Northern, which exploded for 28 points in the second quarter behind Lear TD's to Matt Stuart of 10 and two yards and Brandon O'Brien, who caught scores of 55 and 43 yards in the second quarter, as well as another 20-yarder by Stephen Silva, had one last gasp to avoid a loss in the final two minutes of the game. But a solid drive, which started with a long gain by Lear ended with an interception near the EOU goal line, Lear's third turnover of the half. At the time, the Lights were nearing the range of a game-tying field goal try, but they never got the chance.

"It's tough," Samson said. "We just played so well for a half. But we just didn't do much of anything right in the second half. Too many mistakes on offense, we didn't get going again. We didn't do a good job of protecting the quarterback in the second half. And we had some basic coverage breakdowns on defense which led to some big plays for them"

And Northern did play a magnificent first half. Aside from Lear's five TD's on a day when he finished with 316 yards and 34 more on the ground, the Northern defense was almost perfect, sacking Ware, forcing the Mounties into major miscues and all-around dominating the first half. MSU-N also did well to contain Sampson, the Frontier's leading rusher. Sampson came into the game averaging 122 yards per outing and over 200 all-purpose yards per game, but the Lights didn't let him get away for the most part as he finished the day with 103 yards on a whopping 30 carries.

On defense, Landry See and Andrews had huge games. See finished with 13 tackles and a sack, while Andrews had a pair of forced fumbles, six tackles and a sack.

Northern also got great performances from Stuart and O'Brien, who both went over the 100-yard mark in receiving, while Miller was spectacular for EOU, racking up 165 yards on seven catches to go with his three scores. Kimball had four sacks for a much maligned EOU defense.

"Credit Northern," EOU head coach Tim Camp said. "That is a very good football team."

And the Lights were good Saturday, but EOU was the team shining at the end. With the comeback in tow, the Mounties (5-3, 5-4) took sole possession of second place in the Frontier, while the Lights fell to 3-5. MSU-N is on the road for the final two weeks of the regular season, starting with a trip to Rocky Mountain College this Saturday.

"This one was difficult, there's no question about that," Samson said. "But now we just have to regroup. We have to find a way to go down and get a win against Rocky."