Weber State’s Winning Kick Dulls Ewu’s Defensive Gem

Sometimes you can’t make believers out of people no matter what you do.

Eastern Washington’s defense, the abused stepchild of the Big Sky Conference last fall, learned that disturbing lesson Saturday night, losing to Weber State 22-20 on a 38-yard field goal by Scott Shields with just 15 seconds left in the game.

Shields’ decisive kick, which thrilled the majority of those in a Wildcat Stadium crowd of 11,794, was far from pretty. The ball was tipped at the line of scrimmage by Eastern’s Steve Mattson and went into a flat spin before crashing into the crossbar of the goalposts and bouncing over.

The kick capped an impressive 14-play, 56-yard drive that ate up nearly 6-1/2 minutes of the game clock and left Eastern, which was out of timeouts, without time to answer.

It also overshadowed a splendid effort by EWU’s maligned defense, which had held Weber’s traditionally explosive offense in check most of the game.

Until the final drive, the Eagles had limited the Wildcats to 80 rushing yards and 334 yards of total offense - almost 140 fewer than they allowed on an average last fall. They had also consistently harassed WSU quarterback Roger Cook with a strong push up the middle and alert secondary play that produced a pair of interceptions.

But in the end, Weber State asked Eastern’s defense to prove itself one more time. And it couldn’t.

“Obviously, we’ve gotten better defensively,” Eagles coach Mike Kramer said after the Big Sky Conference showdown that served as the season opener for both schools. “But we weren’t good enough when the chips were down, because we came up 6 inches short - literally … figuratively … measurably … inevitably.

“We’re an improved football team, but we’re not improved enough. We’ve got to find a way to make up those 6 inches - and we will.”

The EWU offense, despite an invisible running game, did what it could to support the inspired effort of its defense.

Junior quarterback Harry Leons completed 21 of 29 passes for 225 yards and one touchdown - a 5-yard strike to Mattson, a defensive tackle who had lined up as one of three tight ends in Eastern’s goal-line offense.

And he also took care of the football, with the exception of an ill-advised, first-quarter pass that Shields, a 6-foot-4, 215-pounder who doubles as Weber State’s starting free safety, picked off to set up the second of his three field goals.

“Leons did a nice job,” Weber State coach Dave Arslanian said. “He’s certainly improved from a year ago. He executed their play-action package really well.”

And he did it with Weber having to show little respect for a running game that produced only 52 yards.

Senior tailback Joe Sewell, who rushed for over 1,000 yards last fall, scored EWU’s first touchdown on a 1-yard run just 6 minutes into the game. But he managed only 39 total yards on 22 carries.

The Eagles, who led 10-6 at half-time, hurt themselves with a couple of crippling unforced errors.

Facing a fourth down from the Weber 38-yard line early in the second half, Kramer elected to play safe and punt. But punter Tom Zurfluh let the snap slip through his hands and then kicked the ball off the ground into the middle of the Wildcats’ rush.

The Eagles were penalized 15 yards from the point of the foul and tagged with a loss of down for the illegal kick and Weber ended up with the ball at the EWU 39.

Three plays later, Cook connected with tight end Cam Quayle for a 34-yard touchdown strike that put the Wildcats ahead 13-10 with 5:24 left in the third quarter.

Eastern answered with Leon’s touchdown pass to Mattson and went up 20-13 early in the final period on Atwood’s second field goal, a 27-yarder.

But on the ensuing kickoff, Atwood booted the ball out of bounds, allowing Weber State to start from its own 35. The Wildcats drove 65 yards for only their second touchdown - a 1-yard run by Clemente Santeen.

“You can’t drop the punt snap and you can’t kick the ball out of bounds,” Kramer lamented. “At crucial times, you can’t have young kids making brutal, junior-high mistakes.”

It looked like the Eagles might survive Atwood’s errant kickoff when Shields yanked the potential game-tying PAT dead left. That miss, however, only added suspense to his final field goal - for everyone except himself, it seems.

“It didn’t bother me,” he said, when questioned about his confidence level when he lined up for the game-winning field goal. “I was thinking ‘This is to win the game’ - not about the PAT I missed.”

Weber St. 22, E. Washington 20

E. Washington 7 3 7 3 20

Weber St. 3 3 7 9 - 22

EWUSewell 1 run (Atwood kick) WSUFG Shields 35 WSUFG Shields 21 EWUFG Atwood 30 WSUQuayle 34 pass from Cook (Shields kick) EWUMattsen 5 pass from Leons (Atwood kick) EWUFG Atwood 27 WSUSainten 1 run (kick failed) WSUFG Shields 38 A-11,794.

EWU Weber First downs 14 19 Rushes-yards 33-52 32-95 Passing 249 295 Comp-Att-Int 30-22-1 37-23-2 Return Yards 21 62 Punts-Avg. 4-39.7 3-35.0 Fumbles-Lost 1-1 1-1 Penalties-Yards 4-50 5-32 Time of Possession 30:32 29:28 Individual statistics RUSHINGEWU, Sewell 22-39, Prescott 8-31, Leons 2-minus-10; WSU Sainten 18-52, Pierre 12-34, Cook 1-5.

PASSINGEWU Leons 29-21-1-225, Sewell 1-1-0-24; WSU Cook 37-23-2-295.

RECEIVINGEWU, Miller 7-58, Sewell 4-13, Ogden 3-72, Johnson 3-33; WSU, Sainten 5-45, McGhee 4-72, Mimnaugh 4-52. , DataTimes