Eagles Open Path Into Quarterfinals: Dominant EWU Brings Demons To Their Knees

Eastern Washington had every reason to be a bit apprehensive about facing Northwestern State in Saturday’s opening round of the NCAA Division I-AA college football playoffs.

The Demons, from Natchitoches, La., came in replete with speed. They had a world-class sprinter at tailback, a pair of rangy, long-striding wide receivers with better than 4.4 speed and a bug-quick aggressive defense that had given up a meager 341.5 yards per game during the regular season.

But instead of flinching in the face of such swiftness, the Eagles boldly dared NSU to bring it on. And their brashness paid off in an unexpectedly easy 40-10 win that delighted the majority of those in an Albi Stadium crowd of 6,384.

Eastern coach Mike Kramer called his team’s performance “Thorough, effective, total, dominant all those multi-syllable words that describe devastation.

“It’s the first step on a trip that I never thought we would be on,” he added.

The victory raised Eastern’s record to 11-1 and earned the Eagles the opportunity to host a quarterfinal game next Saturday against Western Kentucky - a 42-14 first-round winner over Eastern Kentucky. Saturday’s game, according to EWU officials, will start at 12:30 p.m at Albi.

You can count Northwestern State coach Sam Goodwin among those who like Eastern’s chances.

“They don’t have many weaknesses,” Goodwin said of the Eagles, who pierced NSU’s once-proud defense for 437 yards, including 241 on the ground. “I think they’re going to go a long way, and we’re pulling for them to win the whole thing.

“There’s no excuses we can make. We just got whipped good and solid, and we’re really impressed with Eastern Washington.”

The Eagles took advantage of their dominant offensive line and the Demons’ defensive pressure up front to break a couple of huge plays early. They then turned things over to their defense, which reeled in tailback Ronnie Palmer throughout much of the game.

Palmer, a track star who has run 10.25 seconds in the 100 meters, finished with a game-high 206 yards on 26 carries, but much of his production came in the fourth quarter against EWU’s second-string defense.

“Sure, we were concerned about their speed, but we didn’t make a big issue about it,” said middle linebacker Derek Strey, who anchored Eastern’s stingy defensive effort with eight tackles. “We knew we had good defensive speed of our own, so we just rallied to the ball and got 11 hats on ‘em.

“The rest took care of itself.” Eastern scored on its first five possessions as starting running back Rex Prescott and Mike MacKenzie, his backup, combined for 231 yards and four touchdowns.

Prescott opened the scoring with a 41-yard touchdown run the first time EWU had the ball, and senior wide receiver Steve Correa put the Eagles up 14-0 just 4 minutes later with a 70-yard TD catch on a pass from quarterback Harry Leons.

MacKenzie and Prescott each rushed for more than 100 yards. Leons efficiently completed nine of 15 passes for 196 yards and the one touchdown.

“I was actually surprised at how effective we were,” Leons said. “We were concerned with the speed, but I thought we did a good job of handling it.

“Our offense likes a lot of pressure. It gives us a chance for big plays if we hit it right and everybody does their assignments. We’ve just got to play smart when it happens.”

The EWU offense let the Demons take themselves out of many plays with their reckless pursuit and slyly opened massive holes on slow-developing counter plays and traps.

“Them running up and down the field like that surprised me a bunch,” Goodwin said, “because nobody else has been able to do that to us.”

EWU coach Mike Kramer said his team learned plenty about how not to attack defensive pressure in 1995 when it was held to less than 15 yards rushing in games against Idaho and Portland State.

“Those teams beat us with speed,” Kramer recalled. “We’ve worked hard to develop our offensive lines, our tight ends and our rushing game against up-field pressure, and now we can handle it, because we’re so crafty about it.”

EWU 40, Northwestern St. 10 Northwestern St. 0 3 0 7 10 E. Washington 17 10 13 0 40 EWUPrescott 41 run (Atwood kick) EWUCorrea 70 pass from Leons (Atwood kick) EWUFG Atwood 27 NSUFG Collins 37 EWUFG Atwood 22 EWUPrescott 1 run (Atwood kick) EWUMacKenzie 7 run (kick blocked) EWUMacKenzie 1 run (Atwood kick) NSUPritchett 10 run (Collins kick) A6,384

NS EW First downs 21 19 Rushes-yards 45-267 46-241 Passing 113 196 Return Yards 7 49 Comp-Att-Int 9-28-3 9-15-1 Punts 4-40 3-44 Fumbles-Lost 0-0 0-0 Penalties-Yards 7-73 2-15 Time of Possession 31:21 28:39 RUSHINGNorthwestern St., Powell 26-206, Robertson 4-23, Emanuel 9-22, Patterson 3-4, Traylor 1-4, Spikes 2-(minus 2), Pritchett 0-10. E. Washington, MacKenzie 16-129, Prescott 18-102, Cappelletti 11-9, Leons 1-1.

PASSING-Northwestern St., Emanuel 7-19-2-57, Spangler 1-5-1-37, Patterson 1-4-0-19. E. Washington, Leons 9-15-1-196.

RECEIVING-Northwestern St., Palmer 3-20, Young 2-47, Johnson 2-34, Robertson 2-12. E. Washington, Ogden 5-59, Correa 2-101, Ballew 1-26, Prescott 1-10.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 3 Color Photos

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Injury update Eastern lost starting offensive guard John Kane to a second-half ankle sprain and the status for the 6-3, 265-pounder from Lewis and Clark High School remains questionable for Saturday, according to coach Mike Kramer. Most of the Eagles’ other bruises - none deemed serious - were sustained by second stringers who played the majority of the final quarter, Kramer added.