BOXSCORE
Southern Oregon jumped out to a 17-3 lead before NCAA Division I North Dakota staged an impressive come back to score a 30-24 victory today in Grand Forks, N.D.
North Dakota improved to 5-4 overall. Southern Oregon, an NAIA school, finishes the season 2-7 overall.
The two teams started off the game trading first quarter field goals before Paul Sweeney put the Raiders up 17-3 on touchdown passes to Cole McKenzie and Vance Beach.
After the touchdown pass to Beach, the Fighting Sioux offense finally woke up.
North Dakota's Ismael Bamba caught four passes for 62 yards on the next drive, including a 6-yard touchdown to cut the lead to 17-10. SOU fumbled the ensuing kickoff, giving North Dakota the ball at the SOU 3-yard-line and three plays later the game was tied going into halftime.
North Dakota turned a third quarter blocked punt into a field goal and then took advantage of a missed field goal to cash in a Jarrel Davis rushing touchdown for a 27-17 lead with 5:09 to play in the third quarter.
Brandon Baldwin opened up the fourth quarter with a 7-yard touchdown run to cut the Fighting Sioux lead to 27-24.
The two teams then traded punts before North Dakota scored a field goal with under a minute to play and SOU couldn't answer - putting an end to the game.
Baldwin finished the game with 132 yards rushing on 31 carries and finishes the season with 1,181 yards rushing, the most for a Raider since Dusty McGrory's 1,702 yards in 2003.
Sweeney had 138 yards on 11 of 23 passing and two scores. Beach caught six passes for 40 yards and McKenzie caught two passes for 78 yards.
On defense, Thomas Sandoval and Scott Graves both had six tackles.
Jake Landry led North Dakota with 206 yards passing.