Huskies Escape With Victory

The Washington Huskies gained a 35-34 Pacific 10 Conference victory over Oregon State on Saturday when a frantic final five minutes culminated with the Huskies breaking up an attempted two-point conversion pass by Jonathan Smith.

After Smith passed for a touchdown as time ran out, he tried to throw to Roddy Tompkins in the back of the end zone to win the game. Tompkins appeared to catch the ball, but it was stripped by Nigel Burton.

“We thought we had the momentum and we thought we had the play,” Beavers Coach Mike Riley said. “I wanted to end the game right there and I thought we could.”

Washington (5-2, 3-1 in conference) won its third game in a row and beat Oregon State for the 11th consecutive time despite Smith’s school-record 469-yard passing performance.

Smith drove the Beavers (4-4, 1-4) 78 yards in five plays, passing 33 yards to Tim Alexander as time expired. It was his third touchdown pass of the second half.

Smith, a former walk-on, had a 90-yard touchdown pass to Tompkins with 8:02 left that brought the Beavers to within a touchdown. Smith didn’t start, but came off the bench for Terrance Bryant in the second quarter and wound up completing 17 of 32 passes for 469 yards and three touchdowns with one interception.

Oregon State’s Jamil Braithwait blocked a punt by Ryan Fleming and recovered the ball on the Washington seven with 4:54 to go. But Omare Lowe intercepted a fourth-down pass by Smith in the end zone with 3:24 left.

The Huskies finally had to punt with 41 seconds left and the Beavers got the ball on their 22 with 30 seconds left. Smith completed passes of 19 and 27 yards to Tompkins before his 33-yard touchdown pass to Alexander.

Washington’s Brock Huard, returning to the lineup after missing 2 1/2 games because of a separated left shoulder, completed 20 of 40 passes for 260 yards and four touchdowns.