HELENA, Mont. -- The consolations were few and far between on Saturday as the Saints fell 27-0 against No. 3-ranked Southern Oregon on homecoming, but they were there. 

"We didn't play well enough to win by any stretch of the imagination," Saints coach Mike Van Diest said. "There's no secret or magic words I can say to take the pain away. You don't ever want to lose on homecoming. You don't ever want to lose on your field."  

But there were shards of positivity.  

The Saints (3-2, 2-2 Frontier) held the Raiders (4-0, 4-0)  to just seven points in the second half after giving up 20 in the first. 

Carroll took care of the ball and moved it down the field, albeit coming away empty-handed on a few trips in the second half. 

And the Saints' defense, despite the scoreboard and yardage totals, showed more positives than negatives on a Saturday that felt like a gut punch at times. 

Southern Oregon took its opening drive and ate up nine minutes of clock, but came away with just three points. 

The Saints threw an interception on their first pass of the game, but, again, the defense held the Raiders out of the end zone and limited the damage to a field goal. 

Trailing just 6-0 after some letdowns early, the Saints had their chances to scrap back into the game.

"It was only six to nothing," Van Diest said. "I thought we did some good things."

SOU broke through with a touchdown on a third-and-five in the second quarter when Wyatt Hutchinson hit Isaac Hurd for a 55-yard touchdown.

"I put our defense in a bad situation," Van Diest said. "I put a young linebacker in man to man coverage with no help." 

The offense just never found a rhythm in the first half. The run game tried to get on track, but when forced into passing situations, the Saints had troubles on third-and-long. 

Major Ali led the Saints with 53 yards rushing, but couldn't help the Saints to find the explosive play to break through on Saturday. 

"Definitely one of the best defenses in the conference," Ali said. "They have a lot of talent. We had some poor execution on some plays. Sometimes it's one guy here or one guy here. We saw today that adds up."

A frustrating first half ended with SOU leading 20-0. 

Second half saw the Saints move the ball better on offense, but their only shot at putting points on the board was stymied when Josh Kraft had his field goal attempt blocked. 

"Second half I was proud of our guys," Van Diest said. "We took the drive down and it's third-and-two inside the red zone and we miss a block. We get a field goal blocked. We had a couple good drives."  

The Saints rushed for 136 yards against SOU's tough run defense, btu managed only 63 yards through the air. SOU had 342 yards total, about 70 yards below their season average. 

"You can't have mistakes against the No. 3 team in the country," Van Diest said.

Linebackers Reece Quade and Chase Bowen each tallied 10 tackles for the Saints. 

Defensive back Parker Bernhardt added nine more tackles and forced a fumble of SOU in the Saints' end zone to force a touchback and prevent a score. 

"It's not a moral victory by any means," Van Diest said. "We had one turnover. We were fortunate there." 

The Raiders added a touchdown in the second half on a 41-yard touchdown pass from Hutchinson to Jason Shelley. 

The Saints have a bye week upcoming and then travel to the College of Idaho on Oct. 6.