Hampshire falls to Oregon

Hampshire finally found some offense. It didn't show up on the scoreboard, though, as Oregon downed the Whip-Purs 35-13, in a Big Northern crossover Friday night in Hampshire. But behind new quarterback Ryan Burke, Hampshire outgained the visiting Hawks.

A couple of key miscues did in the Whip-Purs (0-3). Oregon recovered a pooch kick on the game's first play and drove in for the score. Then, trailing 14-0, the Whips drove nearly 90 yards, but couldn't score on 3 tries from inside the 5-yard line.

"We're on the 5-yard line going in and we can't punch it in," said Hampshire coach Dan Cavanaugh. "That's a big difference. We had some key mistakes, how we started the game and so forth."

Burke, who completed 14 of 21 passes for 184 yards, including his last 6 in a row, led the Whips to a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns. He threw scoring passes of 12 yards to Ray Quesada and 20 yards to Jared Wienke.

"We're putting people where they should be now," said Cavanaugh. "We had a lot of places that we had to fill, and now we've just got to cut down on our mistakes."

Oregon's first drive, which included 2 fourth-down completions by Cole Barringer, including a 2-yarder for the score, set the tone. The Hawks scored again on Nick McKeown's 26-yard run to go up 14-0 at halftime.

McKeown led all rushers with 77 yards. Caleb Kendrick led the way for Hampshire with 39 yards on 11 carries, while Ron Laramie added 36 on 13 attempts.

Hampshire outgained the Hawks 273-233, but several times the Hawks were able to take advantage of a short field to score. Besides the opening drive of 42 yards, they scored on a 33-yard drive following an interception and on a 54-yard march following a failed onside kick attempt.

Oregon, behind Barringer and McKeown, got its first win of 2009.