7A
Monday, October 14, 2019
The Observer
EOU turns out Lights on Homecoming
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
By Ronald Bond
The Observer
Ronald Bond/The Observer
Eric Prom (25) returns an interception for a touchdown
in Eastern Oregon’s win over MSU-Northern Saturday.
The defense set the tone with a
fumble recovery on the first play of the
game. The offense was improved.
Eastern Oregon University’s home-
coming football game went the way the
Mountaineers wanted.
EOU scored the game’s first 24
points, finished with more than 500
yards of offense and forced five turn-
overs in a 45-7 trouncing of Montana
State Northern Saturday night in
Frontier Conference play at Commu-
nity Stadium.
“We definitely stepped it up from what
we’ve been doing,” said linebacker Gun-
nar Blix, who had eight tackles and 1.5
sacks. “Our secondary and run stopping
has kind of been not all there, but today
was a step in the right direction in stop-
ping the run and shutting down the pass.”
Derrick Fontenot recovered a fumble
for EOU on the Lights’ first carry of the
game, and Victor Dias punched in the
first of his two touchdowns from a yard
out for a quick 7-0 lead.
But the main momentum shift came
later in the quarter. MSUN drove inside
the Eastern 5-yard line and appeared
poised to even the game.
The Eastern defensive line, though,
stopped Lights’ running back Cameron
Taylor short of the goal line on fourth
down, and EOU followed with an
impressive 99-yard drive — one that
saw it convert three third downs — and
finished it with a 13-yard touchdown
reception by Conner Falk for a two-
touchdown lead.
It was all Eastern from that point. The
Mountaineers did mostly whatever they
Mounties rally, stun Corban
By Ronald Bond
The Observer
Breathtaking rallies.
Unimaginable digs. Major
momentum swings.
And one monumental
comeback.
“Those are the kind of
games we live for,” Eastern
Oregon University libero Ki-
ley McMurtrey said. “That’s
why we play volleyball.”
The Cascade Collegiate
Conference’s top volleyball
match of the season more
than lived up to the hype.
No. 5 Eastern Oregon
flipped the switch to rally
from two sets down and
stunned No. 7 Corban, 16-
25, 24-26, 25-11, 25-16, 15-6,
Friday night in a matchup
of the CCC leaders at Quinn
Coliseum.
“A lot of crazy adrenaline
and emotion in that game,”
Megan Bunn, who had 21
kills, said. “We came out the
first couple of sets a little too
wound up. From there we
took off. We knew we were
there for a reason. We’re a
team that can push through
anything.”
EOU trailed only once in
the final set and took the
lead for good as a kill by
Megan Bunn, two from Jet
Taylor and a block by Madi-
son Pilon put EOU ahead
4-1. A kill by Taylor Tibbetts,
and then a Tibbetts and
Taylor block made it 9-2.
Eastern finished the match
on Taylor’s 17th kill, which
was somehow assisted by a
one-handed set right at the
net by Pilon, who had 44
assists.
“It was just a good game,”
McMurtrey said. “We know
that we have a tough confer-
ence and every time we step
out here there are going to
be tough games. We have a
longstanding rivalry with
Corban that added to it. I
think everyone was ready
to play.”
Maybe a little too ready at
the start.
The Mountaineers played
See Rout / Page 9A
Navarro
breaks
37-year-
old 8K
record
By Ronald Bond
The Observer
Ronald Bond/The Observer
The Eastern Oregon volleyball team celebrates a point during the third set Friday against Corban. The No. 5
Mountaineers rallied from two sets down to knock off the No. 7 Warriors, 16-25, 24-26-, 25-11, 25-16, 15-6.
COLLEGE VOLLEYBALL
Ronald Bond/The Observer
Megan Bunn had 21 kills for the Eastern Oregon
volleyball team in its win over Corban Friday.
flat in the first set, one that
Corban ended on a 14-5 run.
Eastern appeared ready to
even the match when Bunn
had a kill and a block for a
24-22 lead, but Corban stole
the final four points and the
set when Cassie Cunning-
ham fired an ace.
“I think we wanted it
so bad that it came out as
almost too much energy.
It was almost like a tense
energy,” Pilon said. “It wasn’t
coming out the way we
wanted it to.”
And then the Mountain-
eers flipped the switch.
“I think one key difference
in our mentality transition-
ing from the second to the
third set is it felt like (in the)
first two sets we were play-
ing not to lose. Going into
the third set (we said) let’s
play to win,” Taylor said.
Almost instantly EOU —
which for much of the first
two sets was on its heels,
out of system and couldn’t
generate a strong attack
— was the aggressor. The
offense was smooth, efficient
and powerful. The defense
was aligned. The front
blockers were impenetrable.
The back row got to nearly
everything Corban tried to
put down.
“This team is special in
the way that once they set
their mind to something,
they truly work together to
accomplish the goal that we
need to,” head coach Kaki
McLean-Morehead said.
It was a complete reversal
of the first two sets. And
Corban, which was running
on-point the first two sets,
was suddenly staggered
and unable to do anything it
wanted.
“It was taking a breath,
taking a step back and
realizing what we need to
do,” the coach added about
the turnaround. “Volleyball
isn’t about feelings, it’s about
doing your jobs. Bottom line,
we had to go back to the
drawing board and do our
jobs.”
Eastern opened the third
on a 7-2 run, with three kills
by Bunn and two by Scott
helping build the early lead.
A subsequent 6-0 run made
it 13-4 on a kill by Taylor, and
See Rally / Page 9A
PREP CROSS COUNTRY
The Observer
Ronald Bond/The Observer
Ellyse Tingelstad’s individual victory helped
boost Wallowa County to a victory at the La
Grande Invitational Friday.
The Wallowa County cross
country team continued to show
its top-end dominance, which
led to two more individual and
team victories at the La Grande
Invitational.
Henry Coughlan led three
runners in the top six with a run-
away first-place finish to push
the Wallowa County boys past
Baker for the win on a windy Fri-
day at La Grande Country Club.
Ellyse Tingelstad won on the
girls side and was one of three
Wallowa County runners in the
top seven to help her team past
both La Grande and Baker.
“I thought they competed re-
ally well,” Wallowa County head
coach Dan Moody said of both
of his squads.
Coughlan pulled away from
teammate Zac Knapp about
midway through the race and
finished with a time of 16:28,
with Knapp following in 16:51.
“I looked at my watch on the
back side (on the second lap) and
realized we were way off pace for
what I wanted to run,” Coughlan
said. “I started to kick it in. I was
trying to be 16 (minutes) flat or
lower. I’ve been right there the
last two or three meets.”
The third Wallowa County
runner to cross the line, Bayden
Menton, finished in sixth.
Wallowa County rounded out
See Record / Page 9A
WOMEN’S COLLEGE
BASKETBALL
Eastern
wins in
opener
By Ronald Bond
The Observer
with two more in the top 15
with John Matthews (14th) and
Brenden Moore (15th).
It was just enough to edge
Baker, which also had three
top-10 finishers — led by Kale
Cassidy in third — and all five
of its runners in the top 15. Wal-
lowa County had 38 points as a
team, and Baker scored 43.
The Union/Cove boys squad,
which was third with 75 points,
had its top trio finish in ninth
through 11th — Israel O’Reilly,
Andrew Lackey and Taylor Fox.
Monte Kirby followed in 20th
for the Bobcats, and Carter
Blackburn was 27th.
Cristian Mendoza led
the host Tigers by taking
The Eastern Oregon Moun-
taineers opened the 2019-20
season with a 93-33 home
victory over the Yellowstone
Christian Centurions Sunday
afternoon at Quinn Coliseum.
“We played within our-
selves,” head coach Anji Weis-
senfluh said. “It was great
team ball. We rebounded
the ball well. We ran well. A
couple things we’re going to
need to really work on are
defensive rotation, pressure
on the ball, and just being
stronger with the ball on
rebounding.”
The game also gave the
coach an opportunity to begin
to tinker with the rotation
of her players. Eastern had
14 players see the floor, all of
whom contributed.
“We played a lot of different
combinations,” said Weissen-
See Running / Page 10A
See Hoops / Page 9A
Wins keep coming for Outlaws
By Ronald Bond
Alex Navarro made history
on Saturday.
The Eastern Oregon Univer-
sity senior broke a nearly four-
decade old school record in the
men’s 8K race, taking seventh
overall at the Inland Empire
Championships in Lewiston,
Idaho, with a time of 23:51.
His time bested a mark
that has stood since 1982,
when Don Stearns — an
EOU and NAIA Hall of
Famer, according to the EOU
website — ran a race in 24
minutes even.
“Alex had never even seen
a cross country race when he
got here as a wide-eyed fresh-
man in 2015, and wasn’t even
sure what cross country was,”
head coach Ben Welch said.
Welch said Navarro’s first
cross country race came in a
time of 31:30. Navarro has
clearly made strides since then.
“Just last week he reset
his personal record at 24:57.2
and today’s goal was to run
sub 24:30,” Welch said.
Several athletes at EOU
have come close, but none
had gotten any closer than