Winning on the road in the Pac-12 Conference is no easy task, but the Oregon State football team has already earned two conference victories away from Reser Stadium this season after rallying in the final 19 minutes against Washington State on Saturday night.

The Beavers will try to make it three in the conference and four overall on the road on Saturday when they head to Berkeley to take on California at 7:30 p.m.

OSU has rebounded from a season-opening loss to Eastern Washington and will carry a 5-1 overall record and 3-0 mark in the conference into the game against Cal (1-5, 0-3).

“We like where we are right this minute from where we started for sure,” Oregon State coach Mike Riley said on Sunday.

“I think the biggest thing for us now is to find ways to help these guys get better.”

The Beavers showed more signs of improvement against the Cougars. They trailed 24-17 late in the third quarter, but then they scored 21 points in a span of 2 minutes, 16 seconds of game time.

OSU kept the momentum and finished with a 52-24 victory.

“We were extremely proud of the win and the way we got it and how we had to fight in the fourth quarter,” Riley said.

“Particularly when the momentum had shifted totally in their favor in the third quarter. We kept our composure, we kept playing hard and we made a good drive then started capitalizing scoring off turnovers.”

The Beavers intercepted four Washington State passes in the fourth quarter, with Rashaad Reynolds pulling down two and Steven Nelson and Sean Martin coming up with the other two.

OSU also recovered a Cougar fumble.

“The turnovers were huge in the game,” Riley said.

Other than allowing a couple of big plays in the passing game, the Beavers were able to contain WSU quarterback Connor Halliday.

Halliday entered Saturday’s game averaging 332 passing yards per game, but the Beavers limited him to 248 yards and a 26-for-49 performance that included three of the Cougars’ four interceptions.

“We limited their passing offense to way less than they had been getting, which was hard to do,” Riley said.

Riley was also pleased with the way the Beavers responded to a physical team like the Cougars.

“I told everybody all week they are a very physical, tough football team, and in order to win we had to out-physical them and I thought we did, defensively for sure,” Riley said.

“I thought our defense hit hard and kept hitting and got better as the game went on. I thought we tackled better, we were pretty darn good in coverage, and I thought we were really opportunistic.”