Western Oregon Journal

Issue date: 10/7/09 Section: Sports

Western's defense achieved its first shutout of the the season. Southern Oregon's Damilyn Tanner (21) experienced Western's domination first hand as he only managed a 3-yard punt return.

Western controlled the line of scrimmage all day long, physically wearing down the Raiders.

Jon Dowd (25) electrified the Wolves with his 57-yard punt return touchdown.

Jon Dowd (25) electrified the Wolves with his 57-yard punt return touchdown.

The old sports saying goes, "defense wins championships." If the statement is true, then on Saturday Western (3-2) earned bragging rights during the small-school version of the Civil War as the Wolves dominated Southern Oregon (1-4) 23-0 to give Western its first shutout since 2007.
Western's defense created excitement early for Western fans at the 1:26 mark in the first quarter as Southern had the ball on Western's 1-yard line running a halfback dive play. Southern running back Brandon Baldwin attempted to leap over the pile for the touchdown but Western was able to knock the ball loose and recover it in the end zone for a touchback.
Although Western did not have much to show on offense, tailback Jon Dowd put up the first points of the game with a 57-yard punt return for a touchdown to spark his team.
"Dowd showed up for us on offense today," said Western coach Arne Ferguson.
With fumbles by both teams throughout the second quarter, Western quarterback Josh Riddell was able to hook up with Sean Fullerton for Western's only offensive touchdown of the day.
"[Fullerton] should have had two or three touchdowns because he was beating his guy left and right and [was] playing well," said Ferguson.
"Offensively, it just took a while to get things going," said Ferguson.
Western came out with a 17-0 lead to begin the third quarter, but the Wolves came out of the locke room rusty as they fumbled the kickoff and gave the ball back to Southern with good field position. Western's stifling defense kept the Raiders from scoring and came up big again to end the third quarter as linebacker Sherman Vercher picked off a Southern pass at the 48-yard line. The drive resulted in three points for Western to give the Wolves a 20-0 lead going to the fourth quarter.
The final quarter was filled with yellow flags all over the field as Western was penalized 17 times for 180 yards for the game.
"Penalties were the number one [thing I] was most disappointed [with]," said Ferguson. "[The Raiders ] had more yards in penalties than they did in offense."
Western put the game away with another field goal in the fourth quarter to seal the game 23-0, but the big story was Western's punishing defense. The Wolves held Southern to a total of 131 yards for the game, an average of only three yards per play.
"We played well," said junior defensive lineman Levi Smith. "They tried running on us, and our philosophy is that no one can run on us."
Despite shutting out Southern, Smith felt there was still more the Wolves could have done. "This game, we still got the goose egg, but [we were] very lackadaisical. We can always play harder, play faster."
Caleb Singleton and Gavin Romanick led the team with eight tackles each and held Southern to only 44 rushing yards on 32 attempts.
"I thought our [defensive] line [and our linebackers] did a real nice job controlling the line of scrimmage," said Ferguson. "Our secondary wasn't quite clicking, but [the Raiders] weren't having the kind of sharpness that [our secondary] kind of expected, especially after [playing UC] Davis [last week]."
Although the Wolves only posted 296 yards on offense, 60 less than their season average, their defense came to play. It was Western's 46th victory in the all-time series and the win puts the Wolves in good position as they head to St. George, Utah to take on Dixie State.

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