UCLA Sinks to New Low in 23-14 Loss : Bruins: Fifth consecutive defeat--this one to Oregon State--leaves Donahue’s team in the conference cellar.

It’s still a four-speed offense with third gear missing, and, because of that, UCLA is looking up at the rest of the Pacific 10 Conference.

The Bruins lost for the fifth consecutive week, this time to Oregon State, 23-14, in a game at the Rose Bowl on Saturday that matched teams that were winless in the conference and looked like it.

UCLA’s mission was not necessarily victory, but avoiding a loss, which is not so much a matter of semantics as of approach to offense. The Beavers (2-4, 1-3) run the wishbone, seeking to grind out yardage on the ground. They did so because quarterback Don Shanklin was able to pick the UCLA defense apart.

“This was Oregon State’s first win in the Rose Bowl ever,” said Beaver Coach Jerry Pettibone. “This was probably one of the biggest victories in our school’s history. Shanklin had a good game. He executed our offense well, but it was not just one player who gave us this win.”

No, Shanklin had plenty of help, but he was the catalyst.

He finished with 159 yards in 17 carries, including a 72-yard play that was the sixth-longest by an opponent in UCLA history and a five-yard run for the game’s final touchdown.

When he wasn’t carrying the ball, he was pitching it to J.J. Young, who scored the game’s first touchdown on a 16-yard run and finished the night with 157 yards in 23 carries; fullback Sedrick Thomas, who bulled 12 times for 56 yards; and Cameron Reynolds, who scored on a one-yard dive to make it 16-6 and blocked all night for Young.

“We were desperately trying to get our season turned around tonight,” said UCLA Coach Terry Donahue. “Shanklin played a real sound game, and they played well early on defense to keep us from scoring touchdowns. We’re just having a tough time getting the ball in the end zone.”

UCLA (2-5, 0-4) had a couple of long pass plays, Wayne Cook completing 17 of 32 passes for 270 yards and a touchdown, and hitting Kevin Jordan on gains of 46 and 52 yards, but most of the night the Bruins sent Sharmon Shah on forays into the Beaver line. Shah rushed 25 times for 131 yards, his third 100-yard effort of the season but his first since the Bruins were 2-0 after beating Southern Methodist.

That was the last time they won or, for that matter, led a game.

They came close, to within 7-6 with 7:29 to play in the third quarter on Bjorn Merten’s 22-yard field goal, which closed out an 87-yard drive.

The Beavers answered on Randy’s Lund’s 34-yard field goal with 2:03 to play, finishing a 48-yard drive.

Successful twice after missing six of his last eight field-goal attempts, Merten was called upon again in the fourth quarter, but missed from 32 yards after Shah’s three-yard touchdown run was nullified because of a holding penalty.

To make things more difficult for the Bruins, Oregon State then embarked on a touchdown drive of 80 yards, Reynolds leaping the final yard to make it 16-6 with 10:32 to play.

To add insult to injury, Shanklin’s five-yard touchdown run finished off a 90-yard Oregon State drive that used 16 plays and ate time that UCLA needed to mount a last-ditch effort.

Too little, too late, the Bruins did score with 17 seconds to play, Cook finding Jordan on a five-yard touchdown pass, and running for a two-point conversion, the game’s final points.

In a game of two teams trying not to lose, it appeared for much of the first half that neither would. UCLA’s Darren Schager and Oregon State’s Doug Stuckey engaged in a punting duel that Schager won, but the Bruins’ field position advantage seemingly had no value.

Schager’s best punt, a 38-yarder to the Oregon State two-yard line, seemed to offer the best hope for the UCLA defense, but Shanklin took care of that.

He gave to Reynolds for 10 yards to offer breathing room, then took off on his own, ducking between the Bruins’ Brian Willmer and Abdul McCullough, then splitting the defense.

Paul Guidry prevented the touchdown, chasing Shanklin out of bounds on the UCLA 16 after a run of 72 yards.

It set up the next play, a 16-yard pitchout, from Shanklin to Young, who followed Reynolds’ block to the right and scored with 3:15 to play in the first half.

“It gave them momentum,” Donahue said. “We had a good punt, and when you have them backed up like that, you’ve just got to keep them backed up. It was a great job by Oregon State, getting that ball out and going the distance with it. It was a huge drive in the game.”

Seemingly trying to match Oregon State run for run most of the night, the Bruins tried to match the Beavers score for score, moving 60 yards in 10 plays before stalling. Merten’s 21-yard field goal cut the Beaver lead to 7-3 with 19 seconds to play.

It was an ugly scoring drive, including an intentional grounding call when Cook threw a pass earthward because Daron Washington was covered on a screen pass; and a holding penalty that cost 13 yards. But it also included Cook completing six passes in a row after the grounding call.

He found Avery Anderson with a pass of 27 yards on third and 24 from the Bruin 22 and added passes of 18 yards to Jordan and 20 more to Anderson, the last moving the ball to the Oregon State seven.

Cook then hit Washington, but Tongue had him shadowed for no gain. Cook scrambled for no gain, and then a gain of three yards before the Bruins opted to have Merten kick the field goal.

It was an option that Donahue eschewed earlier in the half, seeking a first down on a fourth-and-three play from the Oregon State 29. Running from the shotgun, Washington was stopped for no gain and the ball went over to the Beavers.