Beavers Clear Cut the Trees
Oregon State, happy to be home again after a month away from Reser Stadium, kept themselves in the race for the Pac-12 Championship game Saturday, with a 45 point victory over Stanford.
The Cardinal managed a late 1st quarter score, after falling behind 14-0, and answered falling behind by 45 in the 3rd quarter with a 75 yard touchdown pass against a mix of backups, but other than those brief uprisings, the Beavers clear cut the Trees on their way to a 62-17 win that is the biggest Beaver win ever over Stanford, and the most points they have scored against a Power 5 opponent in 15 years.
Damien Martinez, above, ran for 146 yards, putting him over 1,000 yards for the season, and 4 touchdowns on 15 carries, and caught a couple of passes for 16 more yards, though Deshaun Fenwick had the more crowd pleasing run, below, hurdling a Stanford defender on his 37 yard touchdown run.
Fenwick also had a touchdown catch.
DJ Uiagalelei, above, threw for 240 yards and 2 touchdowns, and Aiden Chiles both ran and threw for a touchdown as well. Oregon State rolled up over 600 yards of offense before Ben Gulbranson, who also completed his passing opportunity, gave back 4 in back to back victory formations.
Meanwhile, the Beaver defense allowed only 82 yards rushing, and allowed only 167 passing yards outside of the 75 yard touchdown pass long after the game was out of reach.
4 interceptions, 2 by Kitan Oladapo, helped significantly in shutting down both Ashton Davis, who was picked off 3 times, and Justin Lamson, whom Stanford tried for a while mid game.
Oregon State also forced a pair of Stanford fumbles. Andrew Chatfield Jr. in particular wrecked Stanford’s night with one of the forced fumbles, an interception, and a pair of sacks.
The Beavers spread their 18 completions around to a dozen different targets. Jack Velling, above, had the most catches, 3, while Anthony Gould, below, led Oregon State in receiving yardage, with 1 61 yard catch.
Oregon State now has a 3 game winning streak against Stanford, who fell to 3-7, and 2-6 in conference, to conclude the series against the ACC bound Cardinal.
The dominant home performance improved the Beavers, who are 16-1 over the last 3 seasons at Reser Stadium, to 8-2 on the season, 5-2 in conference, and set up next Saturday’s showdown with Pac-12 leading and unbeaten Washington. The 10-0, and 7-0 in the Pac-12, Huskies came from behind to beat Utah in Seattle 35-28 today.
Cue the fight song!
Andy_Wooldridge@yahoo.com
Photos by Andy Wooldridge