AZUSA, Calif. – Humboldt State laid the lumber on Azusa Pacific, pelting the Cougars into 4 turnovers to produce a 31-10 nonconference victory Saturday evening at Cougar Stadium.

The Lumberjacks parlayed 3 takeaways into 17 points and continually stuffed Azusa Pacific drives, holding the Cougars to just 3 first downs and 85 yards of total offense through nearly 2-and-a-half quarters of play.

After holding Azusa Pacific to no yards on 3 plays in the Cougars’ first series, the Lumberjack defense, led by LB Bubba Reynolds’ team-high 12 tackles, pinned back its collective ears and came after Cougar QB John van den Raadt. On the fourth play of the second series, Reynolds unloaded on van den Raadt, forcing the first of 3 interceptions, with a wobbly ball over the middle that Michael Lynch collected and returned 18 yards to the Cougar 4-yard line. Two plays later Nick Ricciardulli scored from 2 yards out to give the Lumberjacks a 7-0 lead midway through the first quarter.

A Ben Hansen 26-yard field goal, his sixth straight make, put the Cougars on the board at 7-3 early in the second quarter.

Lumberjack back-up QB Chris Bolt, a refugee from Western Washington’s demised program, came off the bench to fashion a marvelous second-quarter drive that covered 10 plays and 72 yards, 41 of which Bolt picked with his first-play run around left-end. Nine plays later, Bolt barrowed in from a yard out to put the Jacks up 14-3 at halftime.

Much like it did in the home-opener vs. San Diego 4 weeks ago, Azusa Pacific shot itself in the foot with another second-half opening turnover. On the second play of the third quarter, Justin Jones fumbled a competed pass that Humboldt’s Luke Swangler recovered at the Cougar 25-yard line. The Jacks scored on the next play and 27 seconds into the second half, Humboldt State was up 21-3 and cruising to its second straight win in Azusa, a first since 1994 and 1995.

Though he threw for just 110 yards, sophomore QB Mike Prouxl engineered 4 Lumberjack scoring drives, two of which he personally capped, first with a 25-yard TD strike to Matt Devlin following the Jones’ fumble and another with a 2-yard burst into the end zone that gave the Lumberjacks a commanding 28-3 lead with 5 minutes left in the third quarter.

The flow of the game was hampered by 9 personal foul penalties, 5 thrown at Azusa Pacific and 4 for Humboldt State. Another 2 were off-setting and therefore never registered in the final statistics.

Humboldt State tallied 342 yards of total offense, much of which was retread by 124 yards worth of penalties.

The Cougars struggled to muster much of an offense attack against a relentless Lumberjack defense. In fact, Azusa Pacific registered 111 of its 242 yards of total offense and 8 of its 14 first downs on its final 2 possessions of the game.

The Cougars’ lone TD drive began with a nifty Jeremiah Andujo 38-yard kickoff return following the Proulx TD. Van den Raadt then motored the Cougars the rest of the 52 yards down field, first hitting Matt Davis on a 28-yard floater down the right sideline, and then going back to Davis for a 10-yard fade in the right corner of the end zone to cut the HSU advantage to 28-10 late in the third quarter.

Van den Raadt accounted for 191 of the Cougar offense, 103 that came off 15-of-27 passing and another 88 (career-high) rushing off 10 carries.

In his second start with the Cougars, DE Mark Berry registered a season-high 14 tackles. Jake Jones collected a career-high 10 tackles that included a quarterback sack.

With the loss, Azusa Pacific falls to 1-5 while Humboldt State improves to 3-2.