Cat-Griz Report: Cats trample Mustangs in Bozeman

BOZEMAN (AP) - Dakota Prukop threw for 399 yards and three touchdowns and Chad Newell ran for 111 yards and three more scores to help lead Montana State to a 45-28 win over Cal Poly on Saturday.

"That was one of the best total team efforts we've had since I've been here," said MSU head coach Rob Ash, who was coaching his 100th game with the Bobcats. "Every guy was locked in on the sideline, because we knew the stakes were high."

The No. 13 Bobcat's Beau Sandland caught 5 passes for 156 yards and two touchdowns. The tight end is the roommate of Prukop, who noted that they had fooled the No. 20 Mustangs on their first score of the second half.

"It looks like zone read on that play, but we're scoring touchdowns," he said.

"That's the guy we were talking about and it all came together for him today," Ash said.

"I just had to catch and then run the ball," Sandland said. "A lot of my catches were uncontested."

Montana State (2-1, 1-0 Big Sky) took a 28-7 lead early in the second quarter, but Cal Poly whittled it down to 31-21 when Kori Garcia scored from six yards out with 23 seconds left in the first half.

Both offenses piled up yards in the first half. MSU's Prukop was 12-of-16 for 291 yards and two long touchdowns of 88 and 63 yards. MSU had 397 total yards in the first 30 minutes. Cal Poly's option attack was good for 215 yards and two touchdowns on 36 carries by halftime. Protheroe had 93 and Garcia 86 of those.

Montana State kicked off to start the third quarter and scored touchdowns on consecutive drives to open up a 45-21 lead. The Bobcats scored on their first seven possessions of the game.

The Bobcat defense stopped the Mustangs (1-3, 0-1) on their first two drives of the second half and took over from there with touchdown drives of 72 and 65 yards.

"(Those stops) were absolutely critical," Ash said. "We were concerned that they had the ball to start the half, but we got a stop on downs. That was the Bignell show. (Linebacker) Mac had a couple stops to set it up, then (defensive tackle) Nate had a really nice tackle on fourth down."

The Bobcats held Cal Poly to five yards per play a week after allowing Eastern Washington nearly 12 yards per attempt. MSU finished with 602 total yards, while the Mustangs had 406. It was the second straight week over 600 yards for the Bobcats. Cal Poly, which has lost three straight games since upsetting Montana back on Sept. 5, still rushed for 357 yards, but couldn't figure out how to stop the explosive Bobcat offense.

MSU is back to the road this Saturday with a showdown with Northern Arizona in Flagstaff.

Grizzlies 23, N. Arizona 14

MISSOULA (AP) - Chad Chalich threw for 279 yards and gave his coach the fast start he wanted and Montana downed Northern Arizona 23-14 in the Big Sky Conference opener Saturday.

Chalich set up John Nguyen's 22-yard scoring run with a 57-yard bomb to Jamaal Jones, and No. 14 Montana (1-0 in the Big Sky, 2-2 overall) had the lead for good with the game barely a minute old.

It was the first start at Montana for Chalich, a transfer from the University of Idaho. He completed 29 of 45 passes with one interception, and hit Chase Naccarato with a 3-yard scoring pass to put UM's homecoming game out of reach with 2:04 remaining.

First-year UM coach Bob Stitt was happy with the junior's first start as well as his finish.

"We talked about it all week and felt like we were really ready to go," said Stitt. "It was nice for our offense to take the ball down and get a couple scores early. We really wanted to play from ahead, and that hadn't been the case in most of the games leading up to this point."

Montana dominated the first half statistically while building a 16-0 lead, and then weathered a second-half comeback by Northern Arizona (0-1, 2-2). The Lumberjacks cut the gap to 16-14 with two touchdown passes from Case Cookus to Emmanuel Butler, covering 57 and 34 yards. The second came with 5:26 left in the third quarter.

In between, NAU's Marcus Alford intercepted a Chalich pass and took it into UM territory. Montana, which had 355 yards of offense by intermission, finished with 474.

"We struggled a little bit on both sides in the third quarter," Stitt said. "But, man, the defense gets the ball back for us, we take it down and the offensive line is getting some great blocks, John has some great runs, we get that touchdown and make it a two-score game. That showed a little bit of what our team is made of."

Three short field goals by Danny Sullivan padded UM's lead in the first half. His first, set up when Tucker Schye recovered a fumbled kickoff by NAU, made it 10-0 at 11:03 of the first quarter.

Northern Arizona (0-1, 2-2) found some momentum after halftime, chewing up yardage and keeping the Grizzlies' defense on the field. The Lumberjacks had two fourth-quarter chances at the lead, but lost the ball on downs at UM's 37 with 11:33 left, and later punted.

Northern Arizona's first drive of the second half ended in a tip-drill, end zone interception by Montana's Yamen Sanders.

"I'm disappointed in the way we played," said veteran NAU coach Jerome Souers. "I thought our opponent had their team very well prepared and disrupted a lot of things we wanted to do on offense. It kind of started there. It was just a tough outcome for us."

Cookus was 13 of 22 passing for 187 yards, with one interception but was sacked eight times, including four by Tyrone Holmes. A homecoming crowd of 26,136 didn't make his task easier.

"There's no getting through it until you get through it," Souers said of playing at Montana, where he was an assistant coach from 1986-97. "It's a tough place to play. The crowd noise led to some communication problems. We just had a lot of mental errors and physical errors that disrupted what we were trying to do."

Butler, who has seven touchdowns on the season, caught four passes for 126 yards for the Lumberjacks.

For Montana, Jamaal Jones had seven catches for 113 yards. Nguyen ran for 71 yards on seven carries.

The finish ended an exciting homecoming for the Griz, who wore throwback uniforms to celebrate the 1995 Division 1-AA national championship team, who was honored before Saturday's game.

Montana now takes to the road for a showdown with UC Davis this Saturday. The Griz return home to host Weber State Oct. 10.

Note: Havre Daily News sports editor George Ferguson contributed to this story.