The Southern Oregon University Raiders haven’t played competitively since November 12^th against Menlo College; but, on Saturday, there were no sign of let down from their 2011 successes during the Medford Kickoff Classic.

During the first half, the Raiders were in a dog fight with the Bulldogs of Montana-Western at Spiegelberg Stadium in Medford as both teams were trading touchdowns.

The Bulldogs strike first on their opening drive as quarterback Jeff Logan connected with one of his receivers for the 11-yard touchdown pass.  The Raiders answered back on a Manny Barrigan four-yard-run, his first of two on the day.

The Raiders tried the “Over the Rainbow” play as a 2-point conversion play but failed; leaving the first quarter score at 7-6 in favor of the Bulldogs.

“Well we told them all summer that once we scored the first touchdown we will go for two-points no matter what the score is to set the temp for the year,” said SOU head coach Craig Howard, “It almost backfired on us but we scored 50 more points after that.”

With 0.8 of a second left in the second quarter, the Raiders found themselves about to give up a 19-14 lead as the Bulldogs were banging down the door from the one-yard-line.  On fourth and goal, being faced with three plays inside the five already, the Bulldogs had handed it off to the middle of the line to only be met with a wall of Raider defenders just short of the goal line as the clock expired for the half.

Momentum had finally swing in the way of the Raiders as they came out from the second half as they scored three touchdowns by the 6:42 mark to be up 40-14.  The scores came by a Austin Dodge 25-yard pass to Michael Olson, a  Monti Wilson interception has set up another Olson run, the final score of the quarter for the Raiders came way of another Olson return; this one came way of a 69-yard punt return.

But the Bulldogs answered this run with a touchdown drive in hopes to build a comeback in way of a rushing touchdown by Tyrell Braun.

40-21.

The Raiders had crushed any hopes of a comeback with a Dodge to Cole McKensie touchdown pass and a Josh Leff interception to keep the Bulldogs in the dog house.

Southern Oregon sealed the 54-21 victory through a Zach Marshall 64-yard touchdown run.

“Big plays from our guys made, we had a lot of sacks defense, [they] had a lot of turnovers.” Said Howard, “Austin Doge led our offense, our receiving core made some big catches for touchdowns…the special teams contributed, the defense contributed on the board, it was a great team victory because all three offense, defense and kicking games played a deal with us scoring points here.”

Dodge finished the game with 326 yards in the air, Patrick Donahue made six catches for 86 yards with one touchdown and the Raider defense converted three interceptions, with Rasjoen Hines returning one for a touchdown in the second quarter.

Improving to 1-0 on the season, the Raiders will be traveling to Billings, Montana to take on the Grizzles of Rocky Mountain College, whom is a forerunner of the Frontier Conference this season.

“We made mistakes,” said Howard, “far too many to beat Rocky Mountain College, they’re a good football team…so we will correct the mistakes with film reviews and practice and try to stay healthy, so the mistakes we made in the first game I think sometimes you make the biggest improvements from week one to week two, I hope to see that this week.”

Score by quarter

                                    1          2          3          4

Montana-Western     7          7          7          0          21

Southern Oregon      6          13        21        14        54

Passing (Comp-Att-Int_Yards)

Montana Western-BRADLEY, Kenney 10-23-2-128; LOGAN, Jeff

14-21-1-163  Total: 21-34-3-291. Southern Oregon-DODGE, Austin 26-39-0-347; KAMMEL, Chris 2-3-0-9.  Total:  28-42-0-356.

Receiving (Receptions-yards)

Montana Western-PENISTON, Rashad 6-59; PASTRAS, Jordan 6-54;
LICKFOLD, Matt 5-80; MATAAFA, Junior 2-9; BRAUN, Tyrell 1-25; HOOHULI, Keenan
1-21; GOLDEN, Dustin 1-21; PERBERA, Kahi 1-20; ROHRICH, Jordan 1-2. Totals:  25-291 Southern Oregon-McKENZIE, Cole 9-153; DONAHUE, Patrick 6-83; OLSON, Mike 3-75; SIERRA,
Clay 3-17; MARSHALL, Zach 3-10; BARRAGAN, Manny 3-8; RETZLAFF, Ryan 1-10.  Total:  28-356.

Rushing (attempts-Yards)

Montana Western-BRAUN, Tyrell 19-107; LOGAN, Jeff 5-24; KRAMER,
Dylan 10-12; LAKE, Michael 2-4; LICKFOLD, Matt 1-4; BRADLEY, Kenney 2-3;
MATAAFA, Junior 1-minus 3. 40-149.  Southern Oregon-MARSHALL, Zach 7-84; BARRAGAN, Manny 19-77; OLSON, Mike 6-24; DODGE, Austin 4-19; DONAHUE, Patrick 2-14; KAMMEL,Chris 2-7; CARLSON, Dylan 1-4; ROBINSON, Kalii 1-3; TEAM 1-minus 3.  Total: 43-229.