Western Oregon hands Hounds 46-7 setback

MONMOUTH, Ore. — After a long scoring drive early, little went right on either side of the ball for Eastern New Mexico University’s football team on Saturday.

Senior running backs Omari Land and Andrew Valladares each ran for two touchdowns and Western Oregon dominated the middle two stanzas en route to a 46-7 Lone Star Conference victory.

Land finished with 105 rushing yards on 15 carries, including TD runs of 7 yards in the first quarter and 20 in the second, while Valladares notched a pair of 5-yard scoring runs.

“We keep talking about the same things,” said ENMU second-year coach Tye Hiatt on Sunday as the team prepared to fly back out of Portland. “But right now, when we don’t have the momentum, we have a hard time executing.”

A sack and a penalty helped negate the Greyhounds’ first possession, and the Wolves (4-4, 3-3 LSC) responded with a drive that consumed just over six minutes, covering 68 yards in 10 plays. It ended with Land’s first tally.

ENMU (2-6, 1-5) countered to tie it late in the stanza, going 81 yards in 10 plays. Junior quarterback Kason Martin had completions of 13 yards to senior D’Angelo Biggs, 18 yards to sophomore Tyree Cherry, 14 yards to junior Asa Wondeh and 10 yards to sophomore Greg Thomas, setting the Hounds up first-and-goal at the WOU 9.

Sophomore Howard Russell went in for the score on third down from the 3, and sophomore Cooper Hamilton’s PAT kick made it 7-7.

From there, it was all Western Oregon. Land and Valladares each scored before Wolves sophomore Anthony Mack Jr. blocked David Sweet’s punt, with Marquis Sampson scooping it up and racing 14 yards for a touchdown to make it 26-7 at halftime.

“I thought we did some really good things in the first quarter, but the wheels came off,” said Hiatt, who grew up in Oregon and had a number of family members and friends in attendance at the game. “We came in knowing they were a tough, physical football team, and that’s what they were.

“We dropped three kickoffs, and that made us start with really poor field position. We had been playing some good football, but yesterday we took a couple of steps backwards.”

Western Oregon, which won its third in a row, added three third-period TDs, capped by a 16-yard interception return from senior defensive back Machiah Lee in the final minute of the frame. Senior DB Joey Sinclair also had a pair of picks against Martin, who finished 9-of-26 for 161 yards.

The Wolves held ENMU to just 250 total yards, including only 74 yards on 36 rushing plays. That included two sacks of Martin for a net loss of 22 yards.

It was Western Oregon’s first win in three all-time meetings with the Hounds, who defeated the Wolves 19-14 in 2018 at Greyhound Stadium and 35-27 the following year at Monmouth.

ENMU plays two of its final three games at home, beginning with Saturday’s 2 p.m. LSC tilt against Texas-Permian Basin (3-5, 2-4). The Falcons are coming off a 24-23 loss at home to Midwestern State on Saturday in which they led the entire way until MSU freshman Ritse Vaes kicked a 42-yard field goal with nine seconds left.

“I think UTPB is a good team,” Hiatt said. “Do I think they’re beatable? One hundred percent. But we’ve got to be better at what we do. When we do that, we have a chance to be a good team.”