Sept. 15, 2007

Lutes Bust Out Early, Hold On to Defeat UW-River Falls

Brett Gordon - four touchdown passes

Chad Blau - 15 total tackles

Box Score

RIVER FALLS, Wis. – Pacific Lutheran broke out to 28-7 first quarter lead, then held off a challenge from Wisconsin-River Falls to garner a 48-37 football victory on Saturday afternoon at Ramer Field.

Brett Gordon, named the Northwest Conference Offensive Player of the Week after his season-opening performance in a win against Cal Lutheran, had another big day for the Lutes. Gordon completed 16-of-28 passes for 304 yards and four touchdowns. He also led the Lutes in rushing with 49 yards on 11 carries.

Pacific Lutheran scored first on an 18-yard end around by Craig Chiado, capping an eight-play, 63-yard drive. After River Falls knotted the score at 7-7, Gordon threw touchdown passes of 30 yards to Chiado and 11 yards to Monroe Samifua to put the Lutes on top, 21-7. With 10 seconds remaining in the first period, Jeff Ebel returned an interception 39 yards for a score to give the visiting Lutes a 28-7 lead.

The Falcons closed the gap to 28-13 when quarterback Storm Harmon threw his second touchdown pass of the game to Ryan Hansen, this one covering 16 yards. Again, the Lutes came back down the field, going 80 yards in eight plays with Jacob Schonau-Taylor capping the drive with a three-yard run.

With his team leading 34-16 at the intermission, Gordon threw his third touchdown pass of the game when he hit Chase Reed with a 15-yard score to cap a 61-yard drive. Consecutive touchdowns by the Falcons closed their deficit to 41-30, but the Lutes came back with another big play when Gordon hooked up with Reed on a 76-yard scoring pass. That touchdown made the score 48-30 and effectively knotted up the game for the Lutes.

Pacific Lutheran gained 467 total yards, including 123 receiving yards by Reed on six receptions. Chiado had five catches for 84 yards and also carried the ball twice for 35 yards. Defensively, linebacker Chad Blau had a big game with 15 tackles, 1 ½ quarterback sacks, a fumble recovery and two pass deflections. Evan Bratz, Andrew Eisentrout and Justin Kelly all added 11 tackles for PLU.

River Falls had a strong offensive game with 478 net yards, including 203 rushing on 39 carries by Nathan Anderson. Harmon completed 26-of-49 passes for 294 yards and three touchdowns, but he was intercepted twice.

Pacific Lutheran, now 2-0 this season, returns to action at 1:30 p.m. Sept. 22 when it hosts Chapman in its 2007 home opener at Sparks Stadium.

- PLU -