HELENA — Southern Oregon is the No. 3 team in the nation for a reason, and the Raiders showed it Saturday afternoon in their 27-0 victory over Carroll Carroll.
The Raiders held the Saints’ offense to 199 total yards, with 136 on the ground and only 63 through the air. Southern Oregon had an interception by Tyson Cooper in the first quarter and fumble recovery by Tre Holmes in the second.
“They are a pretty good, definitely one of the best defenses in the conference,” Carroll junior running back Major Ali said after being held to only 53 yards rushing. “You look at a lot of the guys they have, they have a lot of talent over there.”
Southern Oregon’s offense was pretty talented, too. The Raiders settled for two field goals in the first quarter, but ended up scoring three touchdowns after with 142 yards rushing and 200 passing.
“We didn’t get pressure on the quarterback today,” said Carroll head coach Mike Van Diest. “Some of our three-man front stuff did a great job in their run game, but I thought we did a great job taking care of their inside zone that other people had a problem with. Then they bounced it out a couple of times. We had guys not stay in their gaps. Then when we did have four-man pressures, we couldn’t get to them. The tackles just took away our edge rushers today. They have very good tackles.”
SOU moves to 4-0 heading into the upcoming bye week. Carroll falls to 3-2 (2-2 Frontier Conference).
