Kane Gets 147 Yards as Cal State Northridge Buries Sonoma State

In the 17th and 18th centuries, Russian Cossacks ruled much of Europe. Strong and fearless and invincible, they brought terror on horseback to the lands they roamed.

A couple of centuries later--Saturday night to be precise--the Sonoma State Cossacks invaded Northridge. Not very strong, not all that fearless and certainly not invincible, these Cossacks were not even allowed to sit on sturdy horses.

What they mostly sat on were their butts.

And when the invasion came to a merciful halt, Cal State Northridge had put a 40-14 beating on Sonoma State in the non-conference game behind the considerable talents of running back Mike Kane.

CSUN, 3-2 heading into next week’s Western Football Conference opener, gave Kane the ball only nine times in last week’s 25-20 loss to Cal State Hayward, despite the fact that in that game he became the school’s all-time leading rusher.

Saturday night, Kane got the ball just about whenever he wanted it as the Matadors played a ball-control game from the outset. In their first four games, they held the ball for an average of 26 minutes. Saturday night they held the ball for 22 minutes in the second half.

Quarterback and punter Chris Parker, CSUN’s starter in the first four games who was second in the WFC passing statistics with an average of 281 yards per game, injured an ankle in practice Thursday and was kept on the bench, giving Danny Fernandez his first start of the season.

With Parker out, Coach Tom Keele abandoned his run-and-shoot passing offense and adopted the Kane-and-Score offense. The 5-10, 180-pound junior pounded away at the Sonoma State defense 24 times, piling up a season-high 147 yards and scoring two touchdowns on the ground and a third on a juggling, one-handed catch in the end zone. He played only one series in the fourth quarter.

Kane, who broke the school’s all-time rushing record in slightly more than two seasons, had 70 yards on 13 carries in the first half, more yards and more carries than he had in any of the first four games.

He entered the game Saturday night as the No. 2 Division II scorer in the nation and added 18 more points in that race for the national scoring title.

“Keele said we’d run the heck out of the ball,” Kane said. “I’m fairly happy with how I played, but I’ve had better games against better teams. I can tell the receivers are kind of bummed. I felt sorry for them tonight, but now they know how I feel.”

His third TD on the acrobatic catch in the end zone boosted CSUN’s lead to 33-7 in the third quarter, turning out the lights on Sonoma State, which fell to 1-4, for the second time that night. The first time came in the opening quarter when one-third of the lights at North Campus Stadium blinked off, causing a short delay as officials searched for an electrician and the crowd of about 1,500 fans laughed. The lights stayed out, but, thanks to CSUN’s offense, the scoreboard provided more than enough light.

CSUN boosted its lead to 40-7 just 52 seconds into the final quarter on a seven-yard touchdown pass from Fernandez to Richard Brown. A few minutes later, Sonoma State finally brought its hefty following of fans to life when it closed out the scoring on a 49-yard touchdown pass from John Mefferd to Daren Decker

Fernandez finished with 113 yards, completing 14 of 29 passes including three touchdowns. But it wasn’t the performance he had hoped for.

“I’ve been complaining about getting a chance to play and when I got it I didn’t do anything,” he said. “Mike Kane is awesome. He’s one of the best backs around. He’s as fast as they come.”

CSUN finished with 351 total yards to Sonoma State’s 155.

With Fernandez struggling, CSUN’s offense misfired badly on its first series, which ended with a fumble by the quarterback and a Somona State recovery. But compared to the stalling Cossack offense in the first quarter, the Matadors were running like a Rolls Royce engine.

Sonoma State gave the ball back on a fumble three plays later and CSUN cashed it in, driving 28 yards in four plays with Kane taking a pitch to the left and rambling 10 yards for the touchdown midway through the opening period. The PAT failed and CSUN led, 6-0.

Two minutes later, Charles Collins returned a Sonoma State punt 30 yards to the Cossack 39, and the Matadors boosted their lead to 13-0 with 2:05 left in the quarter on Kane’s three-yard charge into the end zone. Fernandez keyed the drive with a 13-yard run.

The Cossacks bumbled their way to a minus 14 yards in the opening quarter with no first downs. And if they were thinking things couldn’t get any worse, they were wrong.

Just a minute into the second quarter, Fernandez hit Chris Moore with a 12-yard touchdown pass that was set up by Kane, who took a handoff and churned 20 yards to the Cossack 25. The last 10 yards of his run were accomplished with three defenders hanging onto his back.

The Cossacks then began moving the ball behind Mefferd, who replaced starter Eddie Gillis--who played like Dobie Gillis. But in moving the ball, the Cossacks also began giving the ball away. Three turnovers, two fumbles and an interception later, Sonoma State saw three drives fail. This series of miscues led to another CSUN touchdown as the Matadors blew the game open with a 26-0 lead.

The first fumble was recovered by Reggie Wauls, who tried twice to pick up the bouncing ball with no defenders in front of him, but settled for pouncing on it at the Sonoma State 44. The Matadors couldn’t capitalize on that one, but a minute later, after a punt by Robert Guillen to the Sonoma State two-yard line, sophomore lineman Steve Dominic fell on a Tim Duke fumble in the end zone for a touchdown.

Another Sonoma State drive was squelched when Simon Goss intercepted his fourth pass of the season at the CSUN 40. In a burst of confidence, Coach Keele then sent out Mike Doan to attempt a 52-yard field goal that fell a mere 20-yards short.

That and the faulty lights were the only things that failed for CSUN all night.

Sonoma State’s only sign of life in the first half came in the closing seconds when James Klinger blocked a punt and the Cossacks got the ball at the CSUN two-yard line. On the second play, with two seconds left in the half, Mefferd lunged into the end zone for the touchdown, cutting the deficit to 26-7.

Notes

The Matador Marching Band, which did not march, put it to the very, very quiet Northridge fans by breaking into several bars of “Silent Night” in the second period. . . . Sonoma State might have caught wind of what it was in for less than a minute into the game when they faced a third-down and 27 situation at its 3-yard line. The Cossacks finished with minus 24 rushing yards, led by quarterback Gillis who had a minus 28.