The ball was at the Montana 44-yard line, there were 68 ticks left on the clock and the Lumberjacks had one more chance at getting the first down that would continue a possible game-winning drive.

Then junior quarterback Cary Grossart's protection broke down and he found himself on his back for the sixth time in Northern Arizona's homecoming game, a game that the Grizzlies won 28-24 at the Walkup Skydome Saturday.

NAU head coach Jerome Souers -- who has yet to beat the team for which he served as defensive coordinator -- said it was a great football game but also another in a string of tough losses for his program.

"I'm proud of my staff and coaches for putting together a solid plan, and for my players' effort," Souers said. "We didn't play perfect, but we played with good intensity and at times good execution, but the game was defined by blocking and tackling, and they did a better job than we did."

The Griz (6-2 overall, 4-2 Big Sky Conference) got around some of NAU's blocking, and though each of the six sacks on Grossart hurt the Lumberjacks each time, the last one left the deepest scar.

"I can take hits and it might look like the O-line wasn't holding up, but they did a great job," Grossart said. "Montana brought a lot of pressure, and I just couldn't get rid of the ball."

Bryan Waldhauser, UM's senior defensive lineman, said Montana's defense dialed up the pressure and got a good push up the middle for what was essentially the game-ending sack.

"The (defensive) ends contained (Grossart) and I knew he would favor the field, so I rolled with him and it turned out well," Waldhauser said.

All Montana had to do at that point was to take two knees, and what had looked like a miraculous NAU homecoming comeback win was stymied.

"You just have to give credit to Montana for finishing the game when we didn't," Jacks' senior wide receiver Khalil Paden said. "That's what it comes down to -- just finishing games, and we didn't get the job done."

Though they didn't finish the game as they'd have liked, the Lumberjacks started it in the best possible way. NAU received the opening kickoff, then Grossart hit Paden up the middle on the Jacks' first offensive play for a 77-yard touchdown and all the early momentum NAU could have wanted.

"You always want to start out fast and we knew what they were going to give us on first down, so it's a play where you split the safeties and I was able to hit (Khalil) right up the middle," Grossart said.

Paden added that NAU's offensive coordinator Brian Lindgren couldn't have made a better first-play call.

"We were on a mission to win this game, so how we came out was just showing that we were ready to go and that we weren't playing around," he said. "It was a great call, I slipped right up the middle and both safeties went out with the out routes, and Cary threw a great ball over the shoulder and it was an easy touchdown."

It was the perfect start for NAU, but not how the Griz defense was looking to start the game.

"Those first two drives are not what our defense is about and we weren't happy with it at all," Waldhauser said. "From that point on I was happy with how we responded, and we didn't help anybody out getting down 14-0 that early."

NAU's second drive ended with a 37-yard Zach Bauman rushing touchdown, and was a good start for the Jacks' leading running back, who finished with 148 yards on the ground.

"It's big ... having Zach run the way he did and the O-line did a great job in the run game," Grossart said. "There's a lot of big momentum when you can run the ball like that and have Zach score."

The Montana defense held NAU in check during the second quarter, and the Griz offense put 14 points on the board on a 20-yard pass from Jordan Johnson to Peter Nguyen and a 1-yard Jordan Canada run for a 14-14 halftime score.

Souers said that a lot of the confidence and momentum NAU gained in the opening quarter may have been lost during changes in strategies as the game progressed.

"(The way we opened the game) added a lot of swagger (to the team), but there was a lot of coaching going on on both sides of the ball," Souers said. "We did some things early to keep them off-balance and buy ourselves an early lead, but they made some adjustments, came back and stymied us in the second quarter."

Montana busted a huge 80-yard touchdown late in the third quarter for the frame's only points when Jabin Sambrano turned a reverse into paydirt, and NAU didn't seem to have too many answers after that.

"We thought the reverse was going to be a good play ... we knew at halftime we hadn't dialed it up and we thought it was good timing because we hadn't run outside too much at that point," Montana head coach Robin Pflugrad said. "It was great to get outside, and Jabin made a tremendous move on to get to the end zone."

Sambrano said the reverse threw NAU's defense off because UM was running the ball downhill so much.

"Being tucked back so far I'm sure they thought we were going to be passing the ball, so it's a nice playcall by the coach to run the reverse," he said.

Souers said the reverse was one of the final nails in NAU's coffin, even though the Jacks scored 10 points in the fourth quarter.

"That reverse was a huge play and we weren't able to come back with the response we needed to get the game back in our favor," he said.

Paden scored his second touchdown on a 51-yard pass from Grossart, and Matt Myers nailed a 40-yard field goal. It just wasn't enough.

Grossart -- who finished 19 of 27 for 321 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions -- said NAU needs to rally behind the team's seniors if they want to finish the year strong.

"Those are the leaders of the team and we need to send them out with a couple wins. We played two tough teams -- Montana and Montana State are no joke," he said.

NAU will go back on the road to face Sacramento State at 6:05 p.m. Saturday.

Bill Harris can be reached at bharris@azdailysun.com, or 556-2251.