MISSOULA — After a nightmarish October it’s been a November rain of points for the Montana Grizzlies, who crushed Eastern Washington 63-7 Saturday at Washington-Grizzly Stadium.

When Eastern’s Blake Gobel hauled in a 6-yard touchdown pass midway through the third quarter, it stopped a streak of 121 straight points scored by the Griz, dating back to Malik Flowers’ kickoff return at Weber State.

The Eagles, often a Griz nemesis, were helpless to stop the surge. Six of their first seven possessions Saturday ended in punts. The other ended on downs at the Griz 31-yard line. Finally, they missed a 37-yard field goal late in the first half.

Montana scored on six of its first seven possessions, and has recovered some swagger ahead of next Saturday’s Cat-Griz game at No. 3 Montana State.

“I just thought it was a great all-around effort, offensive, defense, special teams,” Montana coach Bobby Hauck said. “Everybody got to play. The punter even got in once today, unlike last week.”

The game was also notable for who didn’t play — Patrick O’Connell (ankle) came out for Senior Day honors, but didn’t get in the game; Marcus Knight was “inactive,” with his No. 21 worn by Drew Deck; and Junior Bergen didn’t suit up — and how it didn’t matter.

The Grizzlies gave the ball to running back Nick Ostmo on their first four offensive snaps Saturday, and the sophomore scored twice.

On their first drive he ran for 2 yards; took a swing pass 45 yards to the Eastern 18-yard line; and then scored from 18 yards out on the same route for a 7-0 Griz lead.

Eastern made one first down, punted for a touchback, and on the next play Ostmo burst through a gap and went 80 yards for a 14-0 advantage. There was 9:57 left in the first quarter.

“Just a standard zone play,” offered Griz offensive lineman AJ Forbes. “We picked up whoever they put in front of us, the guys up front did a great job of making a lane for Nick.

“And Nick is obviously a stud, so he hit the hole and broke it.”

The hits kept coming. Lucas Johnson found a wide-open Keelan White for a 5-yard touchdown pass. Ostmo added scoring runs covering 2 and 23 yards. Isiah Childs scored from 2 yards out.

Down 42-0 at halftime, Eastern kicked off to start the third quarter — and Eureka product Garrett Graves returned in 77 yards. On the next snap, tight end Cole Grossman caught a 15-yard strike from backup quarterback Daniel Britt.

A couple minutes later Britt scored on a 22-yard run and the Griz led 56-0 at 11:17 of the third quarter.

It was the third straight loss for Eastern (2-8 overall, 1-6 in the Big Sky), which had gone to the FCS playoffs three of the last four seasons under Aaron Best.

Best was complimentary of the Griz (7-3 overall, 4-3 in league), who in October lost three straight games to Idaho, Sac State and Weber State.

“They played the perimeter maybe a little bit better than they showed on film,” he said. “They’re playing for their playoff lives. … They just played more physical than us by the end of the game. Things just didn’t work out from start to finish, and they got after us pretty good.”

By the second half both quarterbacks, Johnson and Eastern’s Gunner Talkington, were on crutches with leg injuries. In Johnson’s absence Britt ran for 73 yards and threw for 67, and Hauck was thinking his team’s playoff resume needed little buffing.

“Going back through the season we had a lot of bad breaks go against us. Almost uncanny in a couple of games,” Hauck said. “This group’s competitive, they’re confident, and it showed. They’re playing welI.”

He later added, “I’m also happy for them because I think it means they’re going to get another game after the next one. That probably puts us in the playoffs.”

Ostmo ran for 146 yards on just 11 carries, to go with his 63 receiving yards. Coming off a 412-yard rushing game in last week’s 57-0 win over Cal Poly, the Griz ran for 337 yards on Saturday.

Grossman had four catches for 75 yards. Deck had five punt returns, taking one 23 yards.

Patrick Rohrbach, who like Deck is a Glacier High product, sent his one punt 34 yards. If he was a little rusty, fellow freshmen like Brady Lang (two catches, 23 yards) and Eli Gillman (19-yard TD run) picked up the slack.

Absences aside, everything went swimmingly for the Griz.

“If I was to summarize it,” Hauck began, “I’d say reports of the Montana Grizzlies’ demise are greatly exaggerated.”

QUICK KICKS: Announced attendance was 25,403, and game-time temperature was 20 degrees. … Montana had 605 yards of offense. … Saturday’s win matched the most lopsided in the series, when the Griz beat Eastern 63-7 in 1995. … Glacier High product Henry Nuce had three tackles and got in on his first career sack. … Graves had three tackles and a pass breakup. … Eastern fell to 68-4 (since 2010) when winning the turnover battle; the only turnover of the game was an interception by the Eagles’ Marlon Jones, Jr.