WSU Football Notebook | Hill grabs WSU mark

CORVALLIS, Ore. — Leaning against a wall adjoining the Washington State locker room here, Jason Hill could finally afford to exhale. It hadn't been his best day — after all, he left with four minutes remaining in the third quarter because of a shoulder bruise — but overall, life was good.

Hill ended an eventful week Saturday against Oregon State, catching five passes for 121 yards and the game's only touchdown. In the process, he reached the 2,504-yard mark for career receiving, bettering Hugh Campbell's (1960-62) WSU standard of 2,452.

"I found myself a little too hyped up," Hill said. "I wanted to perform for my mom, my team, I wanted to show I can miss practice and come out and be a gamer."

Hill's mother, LaVerne Hawkins, suffered a heart attack recently and Hill left the team early in the week to be with her in San Francisco, missing most of the week's workouts. He has always had a lot on his plate, mentoring a younger brother by phone while staying extremely close to his mother.

Asked if the week had been stressful, Hill said, "It definitely was. I'm human like everybody else."

Hill said his mother was due to have been released from a hospital and return home Saturday morning, and presumably watch on television what could have been a fairly stressful game.

Hill said he suffered the shoulder bruise on a 25-yard reception along the WSU sideline, the first gainer on the Cougars' only touchdown drive.

Three plays later, Alex Brink threw a strike on a post route to Hill, who caught it despite being shadowed by cornerback Keenan Lewis.

"He landed on me," said Hill, who got up in obvious pain. "I had to make sure I secured the ball. It hurt, though."

Asked if he felt he'd be ready to go against 5-1 California next week, Hill said, "I better be ready to play. I don't want to miss games. This is my last go-round."

Beavers reunions

This was a weekend of Rose Bowl reunions for Oregon State.

The 1956 team coached by Tommy Prothro that lost the 1957 Rose Bowl to Iowa 35-19 to finish 7-3-1 was honored on the field at halftime.

Honored in the stands were the five surviving members of the 1941 team coached by Lon Stiner that won the 1942 Rose Bowl. That team beat Duke 20-16 in the Rose Bowl played in Durham, N.C., because of World War II concerns about West Coast security after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

4 down, 2 to go

WSU coach Bill Doba said the win was important to his team's bowl hopes, adding, "We had to get this one, because we've got a couple of toughies coming. They [his players] want to get somewhere warm."

Doba said he thought the Cougars could be stepping into a hornet's nest here, with OSU players and coaches under considerable criticism.

"I told the kids, 'This is a tough place to play. It's loud, they get after you,' " Doba said.

Did he think the message took?

"Evidently not. It got across enough to win, but it was still tough ... I think you have to give them [the Beavers] some credit. They're not a bunch of ham-and-eggers, either."

WSU is 4-2, needing to get two more wins in their final six to become bowl-eligible.

Beavers' top assistant

An addition to the Oregon State coaching staff this year is Jay Locey, who moved down the road to Corvallis after a successful 10-year stint as head coach at NCAA Division III Linfield in nearby McMinnville.

He is the No. 1 assistant to coach Mike Riley and is considered by some to be Division I head-coaching material.

Notes

• Dwight Tardy started at running back for the second straight week for the Cougars but DeMaundray Woolridge played in the first offensive series.

• Riley said the loss "is hard because we gave tremendous effort."

"Our kids came back from last week with a sense of urgency and worked hard and worked up to a good football game," Riley said. "The problem is that you're not rewarded with a win with that effort. The answer to that is, 'So what?' That's life. It doesn't always happen like that. We will go back and do it again and we'll get better. You can't win games with five [actually four] turnovers."

The Beavers were coming off an embarrassing 41-13 home loss to California in which thousands of fans left at halftime.