HANOVER – They had a 14-point lead in the fourth quarter against an opponent they hadn’t lost to in 40 years. It should have added up to a win, but the math didn’t work out for the Wildcats.
Dartmouth (1-0) put together an 80-yard drive in the closing moments and scored with 1:40 left to pull out a 22-21 win over the University of New Hampshire (1-2) Saturday night in front of 8,296 at Memorial Field.
“That’s a significant win for us, beating a team like UNH,” Dartmouth Coach Buddy Teevens said.
The last time the Big Green beat New Hampshire was 1976. Since then, UNH has gone 18-0-2 against its in-state rivals. But when asked if his team had overlooked Dartmouth, New Hampshire Coach Sean McDonnell gave a quick and emphatic answer.
“No,” McDonnell said. “They knew these guys are a good football team. … I think what happened out there is that they got rolling, made some plays, got some momentum going their way and we just didn’t respond to it.”
The Wildcats took a 21-7 lead into the fourth quarter, which Dartmouth trimmed to 21-10 with a 28-yard field goal from David Smith with 13:45 left on the clock. When UNH got the ball back, backup quarterback Adam Riese came on to the field instead of starting quarterback Trevor Knight (24-for-36, 170 yards, two touchdowns).
“We felt there was some thing that (Knight) missed early in the game and felt that he missed a couple things while it was going on and we have enough confidence in Adam, thought we’d give Adam a shot,” McDonnell said. “Thought Adam did all right except for the one pick he threw down there. It’s a work in progress for all of us.”
Riese’s interception, an ill-advised pass thrown into triple coverage, was picked off by Dartmouth’s Colin Boit at the Dartmouth 14 and returned all the way to the UNH 44 with 7:33 left in the game. So just when it looked the Wildcats were about to wrap up another win over the Big Green, Dartmouth was back in business.
And seven plays later, Jack Heneghan (22-for-46, 229 yards, three touchdowns, two interceptions) shuffled to his left, took a step toward the line and then flipped a 4-yard touchdown pass to Emory Thompson to make it 21-16 with 5:00 on the clock. It was a play the Wildcats would, unfortunately for them, see again.
Dartmouth forced Riese and UNH into a three-and-out on the next possession and got the ball back on its own 20 with 3:35 left.
“We came out (for that drive) feeling like we knew what we needed to do and we felt well-prepared,” Heneghan said. “We felt calm and just really excited about the chance to go make a play.”
The Wildcats, on the other hand, were anything but calm. They had a hard time lining up in the right spots as the Big Green went to a no-huddle, hurry up attack. They gave up passes of 11, 24 and 37 yards as Dartmouth pushed the ball to the UNH 5, and then they had to burn a timeout.
“We just didn’t have a feel for what they were doing and tried to regroup a little bit,” McDonnell said.
It didn’t work. On second-and-goal from the 1, Heneghan once again shuffled to his left, took a step toward the line and then flipped a pass into the end zone, this one to Charles Mack with 1:40 left in the game to give his team a 22-21 edge.
Riese took the first three snaps of UNH’s final drive before Knight came back in the game, but that change didn’t work, either. Brennan Cascarano ended the game when he sacked Knight on a fourth-and-6 from the UNH 5.
“Good win for them, tough loss for us,” McDonnell said.
Dartmouth struck first in the game when Heneghan hit Houston Brown with a 7-yard touchdown pass with 3:47 left in the first quarter.
The UNH defense answered with a 61-yard interception return for a touchdown from Jared Kuehl with 3:08 to play in the second quarter. A couple minutes later, momentum then took a wild swing in favor of the ’Cats when Casey DeAndrade tracked down Ryder Stone at the end of a 64-yard run and forced a fumble at the UNH 14 that New Hampshire’s Rick Ellison recovered.
Knight then directed an 86-yard scoring drive in just 1:43. He went 5-for-8 for 58 yards on the drive, the last completion a 27-yard scoring strike to Kieran Presley, the first touchdown of his career, that put UNH up 14-7 at the half.
The lone third-quarter points came when UNH’s Justin Malone-Woods made a diving catch in the end zone for an 8-yard touchdown that put the ’Cats up 21-7 midway through the quarter.
Dartmouth held a 435-338 advantage in total yards
Malik Love had 13 catches for 108 yards to lead UNH receivers. After gaining 199 yards last week, Dalton Crossan had just 45 yards on 12 carries against Dartmouth.
DeVaughn Chollette led UNH with 11 tackles.