The first play started the avalanche.
 
All-America quarterback Gage Gubrud found fellow senior Nsimba Webster for a 50-yard touchdown pass on the game's first offensive play, and the Eastern Washington University football team went on to open the 2018 season with a 58-13 victory over versus regional rival Central Washington on Saturday (Sept. 1) at Roos Field.
 
Eastern, which joined Central as top 10 teams nationally in their respective divisions, scored 20 points on its first 12 plays in the game in the 69th all-time meeting between the two schools. The 26th-straight sellout crowd at EWU of 8,658 fans at "The Inferno watched EWU out-gain CWU 677-321 in total offense as Eastern finished with 349 passing and 328 rushing.
 
The yardage total the fifth-most yards of offense in EWU history. Eastern's 58 points scored ranks tied for 17th and was most in the all-time series with Central.
 
Gubrud led the way with 337 yards and five touchdowns with a near-perfect 19-of-23 performance. Webster finished with a career-high 212 yards receiving (ninth-most in school history) on 10 catches (second-most in his career) and scored twice. Senior running back Sam McPherson had a career-high 185 yards – the most by an Eagle in five years – and scored once.
 
Central's Reilly Hennessey, a former Eagle, had 21 yards of total offense on 19-of-32 passing for 164 yards and a touchdown to go along with 12 rushes for 53 yards and a touchdown.
 
"We got a lot of juice off the first offensive play in this setting – your first game, your first game at home and the Reilly versus his former team setting," said Eastern head coach Aaron Best. "It obviously helps when you have that type of play to begin the game. But the plays that follow are what really matters because they aren't always going to happen the way our first play did. We still have to play defense and function well – the first play isn't going to dictate the outcome of a game."
 
Eastern entered the game ranked seventh in the American Football Coaches Association Top 25 poll for NCAA Football Championship Subdivision teams, and Central was ninth by AFCA in Division II. Eastern is also ninth in the STATS poll of sportswriters, broadcasters and sports information directors.
 
 
Records . . .
 
* Now 1-0 in 2018, Eastern closed the 2017 season with a 7-4 record overall and was 6-2 in the Big Sky Conference in the first season under head coach Aaron Best. Last season was the 11th-straight season the Eagles have finished 5-3 or better in the Big Sky, with an 11th-straight winning season and 20th in the last 22 years. But winning a 10th Big Sky title and making a 13th appearance in the FCS Playoffs is the quest for the 2018 Eagles, who are hungry to make that happen.
 
* Central Washington, now 0-1, advanced to the NCAA Division II Playoffs, but suffered a loss to the eventual champion and finished the year 11-1. The Wildcats were a perfect 8-0 in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference.
 
 
What It Means . . .
 
* Eastern is now 35-30-4 all-time against Central, which is an NCAA Division II school located in Ellensburg, Wash. Both the Eagles and Wildcats are picked to win titles in their respective leagues – EWU in the Big Sky Conference and CWU in the Great Northwest Athletic Conference. Once fierce NAIA rivals in the Evergreen Conference, the Eagles and Wildcats have not played each other since 2010, and have met just seven times since EWU moved to FCS (then I-AA) in 1984. The first meeting in the series came in 1921, and the two teams met at least once each season from 1921-42, and again from 1946-79. Eastern has now won nine of the last 10 meetings.
 
 
What's Next . . .
 
* The Eagles will start a home-and-home non-conference series with Northern Arizona on Sept. 8 in Flagstaff, Ariz., at 4:05 p.m. Pacific time. The return game will come two years later in Cheney, Wash., on Sept. 19, 2020. The two teams didn't play in 2017, and NAU finished 7-5 overall and 6-2 in the league. Eastern will take a 20-12 all-time series lead into its game against NAU, with Eastern winning 50-35 in Flagstaff on Sept. 24, 2016, in a meeting between the fourth-ranked Eagles and the 26th-ranked Lumberjacks. Eastern was also ranked fourth when the two teams met on Nov. 7, 2015, in Cheney, but EWU was defeated 52-30 to end its six-game winning streak. The last time EWU and NAU played in a non-conference game came in 1986 – the year before the Eagles joined the league.
 
 
Keys to Game . . .
 
* After scoring on the first offensive play of the game following a 20-yard return by Calin Criner off a short kickoff, Eastern scored the next two times it had the ball as well. Tight end Jayce Gilder caught a 10-yard TD pass from Gage Gubrud to cap an eight-play, 84-yard drive, then Sam McPherson scored on a 13-yard run to cap a three-play, 58-yard drive. That gave the Eagles a 20-0 lead with 4:11 left in the first quarter. Eastern then scored 14 points in the second quarter, 10 points in the third and 14 in the final period.
 
 
Turning Point . . .
 
* After the Wildcats cut EWUs' lead to 34-13 late in the first half, the Wildcats recovered an EWU fumble on the ensuing kickoff. But Eastern's defense allowed just a net three yards in three plays, and Central missed a 35-yard field goal to maintain EWU''s 21-point lead at halftime. The Eagles then scored four of its first five possessions in the second half to regain control.
 
 
Top Performers . . .
 
* Senior quarterback Gage Gubrud completed 82.3 percent of his passes (19-of-23) to finish with the 17th 300-yard passing performance of his 28-game career. He finished with 337 yards with no interceptions and five touchdown passes, giving him 79 in his career (fourth in school history, just five from third).
* Senior wide receiver Nsimba Webster had the fourth 100-yard receiving game of his career, finishing with 10 catches for a career-high 212 yards and a pair of touchdowns. He scored on receptions of 50 and 15 yards, as he had the 16th 200-yard performance in school history to rank ninth overall.
* Senior running back Sam McPherson had his second 100-yard rushing game of his career, finishing with 185 on 15 carries (12.3 per carry). He scored on a 13-yard run as he eclipsed his previous high of 118 last November against North Dakota. His yardage total ranks 40th in school history and was the most since Quincy Forte had 190 versus Jacksonville State in the FCS Playoffs on Dec. 14, 2013.
* Senior safety Mitch Fettig and senior linebackers Kurt Calhoun and Ketner Kupp led EWU's defense with seven tackles apiece. Kupp also had a sack and two quarterback hurries.
* Sixth-year senior kicker Roldan Alcobendas made a 47-yard field goal – the second-longest in his career – and finished with 10 total points. That gives him 211 in his career to rank third in school history, just 20 from second and 25 from the school record of 236. He is also EWU's new punter, but EWU didn't punt after scoring on nine of 12 possessions and fumbling on three of them.
.
 
Key Stats . . .
 
* The Eagles jumped out to a 20-0 lead just 10:49 into the game, and out-gained CWU 187-50 in those 12 plays (15.6 per play). Gage Gubrud completed nine of his first 10 passes in that stretch for 172 yards and a pair of scores. For the game, Eastern averaged 10.7 yards per play compared to 4.4 for the Wildcats.
 
 
Other Team Highlights . . .
 
* Eastern has 56 returning letterwinners returning, and seven offensive players and five defensive players have previously earned All-Big Sky accolades. Eastern entered the season with 182 starts worth of experience on each side of the ball, with 15 players on defense and 17 on offense having previously started games. Of EWU's 22 starters against CWU, only freshman redshirt Andrew Boston and junior defensive end Jim Townsend had not previously started.
 
* A crowd of 8,658 were on hand for EWU's game giving EWU 26-straight regular season sellouts (crowd of 8,600 or more) and 38 overall. Eastern is now 45-10 overall since the red turf was installed at Roos Field, and have lost just six regular season games at "The Inferno" – 35-6, plus are 10-4 in playoff games. The only regular season losses at home for EWU since then are to conference foes Montana State (2011), Portland State (2011 and 2015) and Northern Arizona (2015), as well as North Dakota State (2017) and Weber State (2017).
 
 
Notables . . .
 
* Central's current quarterback is former Eagle Reilly Hennessey, who directed CWU to an 11-1 record and perfect 8-0 mark in the GNAC in 2017. He completed 67 percent of his passes for 2,551 yards and 28 touchdowns as CWU lost its lone game in the first round of the NCAA Division II Playoffs. Hennessey played in 11 total games from 2015-16 at EWU, starting a pair and finishing with 1,017 yards and seven touchdowns. The 2014 graduate of Camas (Wash.) High School not only saw his former Eastern teammates at "The Inferno," but his former high school teammates as well in wide receiver Zach Eagle and kicker Roldan Alcobendas.
 
 
 
Head Coach Aaron Best Comments . . .
 
On Game: "We'll learn along the way – we haven't arrived yet. This was a good game, but it wasn't a complete game. We had too many penalties and gave up the ball three times. There are still some things to work on. We kind of stubbed our toes and we kind of overcame them. But down the road when everybody is fine-tuning their offense, defense and special teams, you aren't going to be able to crawl out of a lot of those holes. Those are things we'll talk about in the coming weeks, but right now I'm proud of our team and they played their tails off against a very good football team."
 
On Nsimba Webster: "Nsimba had a great game – he had a ton of catches and yards, and made a lot of big plays. He fought his tail off along the sideline – we moved him inside for a reason and we saw the productivity."
 
On Motivation for Opener: "No matter how last year went, it was our first game and we felt our freshest today than we will all season. We looked motivated and played well. At times Central moved the ball a little too easy on us, but at the end of the day we buckled down and only gave up 13 points. The numbers we are concerned about are the scoreboard numbers – not the yards, the completion percentage or the touchdown passes. We are worried about the scoreboard and we were on the plus side of that today."
 
On CWU: "That is a fabulous outfit. Last year they were good, but Central will be a very good team this year too. Coach Shoemaker is going to do a great job with that team this season."