Football Rallies For 20-17 Win Over URI

Saturday, October 31

Durham, N.H.

1:00 PM

University of New Hampshire

4-4 , 2-3

University of Rhode Island

1-7 , 1-4

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

URI

UNH

Dalton Crossan scored a pair of touchdowns in UNH's comeback win.

Photo by: Gil Talbot

10/31/2015 4:35:00 PM | Football

Box Score

DURHAM, N.H. – Junior running back Dalton Crossan (Lake Ronkonkoma, N.Y.) scored twice and senior quarterback Sean Goldrich (West Haven, Conn.) connected with junior wide receiver Kyon Taylor (Springfield, Va.) for a 5-yard touchdown pass late in the fourth quarter to lead the UNH football team to a 20-17 comeback win over Rhode Island in Cowell Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

The Wildcats snapped a two-game losing streak and evened their overall record at 4-4 and improved to 2-3 in the Colonial Athletic Association. Rhode Island fell to 1-7 and 1-4.

It was UNH's eighth straight home win over Rhode Island and the Wildcats have won 10 consecutive CAA games at Cowell.

UNH has three games remaining in the regular season and two of them are at home, starting with Richmond next Saturday at 3 p.m. The Wildcats play at Albany on Nov. 14 and then return to Cowell Stadium to face Maine on Senior Day on Nov. 21 (1 p.m.).

A limited number of tickets remain for each home game and are available by calling 603-862-4000, ext. 5 or visiting www.unhwildcats.com.

UNH trailed Rhode Island 17-0 at the half.

"Didn't yell," said UNH coach Sean McDonnell about his halftime message. "Didn't yell. Just appealed to their pride. Told them people are going to see who you are, really what you're all about right now. Are we the same thing we've been about for the last couple of weeks and the first half, or are we something different?"

To make matters worse, Rhode Island had punched in a touchdown with no time remaining in the first half the 17-0 count.

"Obviously we didn't have any (momentum) going into halftime," Crossan said. "It was gut-check time in the locker room and what coach said, I think we all took to heart. We just wanted to show everybody and ourselves that we weren't dead and we can still come back. Just one play at a time and I think we did a great job at that."

The Wildcats received the second half kickoff and struck quickly. Four plays into the half, Goldrich hit Crossan on the fly and he went down the right sideline for a 52-yard touchdown.

"The whole thing we talked about during halftime was, 'Guys, think about this first drive, we need this first drive,'" Goldrich said. "Everything going through your mind right now is how we're going to score. That play, just a simple wheel route, me and him were on the same page. Luckily, we executed well on that play and that's what we started to do the whole second half after that."

Crossan scored again, on a 12-yard run, with 8:39 left in the third period. Senior Christian Breda (Needham, Mass.) kicked his second conversion kick and URI's lead was down to 17-14.

UNH started its winning drive from its own 16-yard line with 7:15 left in the fourth quarter.

Goldrich and Taylor capped the seven-play, 84-yard drive with the TD pass, Taylor's first of the year, with 5:46 left to play. Breda's kick was wide and UNH had its first lead of the game at 20-17.

On URI's next series, junior linebacker Ryan Farrell (Westwood, Mass.) got a quarterback sack on third down and forced a punt and UNH's offense ran out the clock.

The offense and defense both turned things around in the second half.

The Wildcats collected 306 of their 382 yards of offense in the second half. URI had just 29 yards of offense in the second half. Besides being shut out in the second half, URI had just three first downs.

The UNH defense held tough after the Rams blocked a punt late in the third period, too. The block gave the Rams, who led 17-14 at the time, a first down at the UNH 32. A third-down sack by Dougie Moss (Huntsville, Ala.) helped end that threat.

"Defense always has to battle through adversity and that's exactly what we did," Farrell said. "We were put in a tough spot, but it's just about playing together and playing as one."

The Wildcats held Rhode Island to 225 yards of offense for the game.

Farrell led the Wildcats with nine tackles and had one of the two UNH sacks. Junior defensive back Casey DeAndrade (East Bridgewater, Mass.) and Moss had six tackles each.

Crossan finished with a season's-best total of 226 all-purpose yards. He rushed 18 times for 114 yards, caught four passes for 66 yards and had two kick returns for 46 yards.

Goldrich completed 18 of his 32 passes for 198 yards and the two scores.

After converting just one of six third-down chances in the first half, the Wildcats were six-for-nine in the second.

The Wildcats struggled to get their offense going in the first half. They had a total of 76 yards of offense in the half to URI's 196.

The Rams took advantage of UNH's one first-half turnover.

UNH started its second possession on its own 11-yard line. On the first play, Goldrich connected with Jared Allison (Cliffwood, N.J.) for a short pass. Allison was hit and lost the ball and Isaiah Hill, who made the hit, recovered the fumble.

Four plays later, Justin Rohrwasser opened the scoring with a 37-yard field goal.

The Rams tacked on a pair of Harold Cooper touchdowns – one on the last play of the half – to take a 17-0 lead at the break. The first TD came on a 31-yard pass play from Wesley McKoy halfway through the period and the next on 1-yard run.

It was all Wildcats after that.

"Pretty proud of the way we responded in the second half," McDonnell said. "It was very uncharacteristic as we played early in the game here and everybody was disappointed. I thought we regrouped. I thought we made some good adjustments both offensively and defensively at halftime. But it wasn't on Xs and Os, I don't think. I think it was about these guys and these kids wanted to show people that they're a good football team and they went out and played that way in the second half."