Football Defends Musket, Beats Maine, 22-6

Saturday, November 21

Durham, N.H.

1:00 PM

University of New Hampshire

7-4 , 5-3

University of Maine

3-8 , 3-5

1st

2nd

3rd

4th

Maine

New Hampshire

Sean Goldrich passed for one TD and ran for another in a 22-6 win over Maine.

Photo by: Paige O'Donnell

11/21/2015 3:51:00 PM | Football

Box Score

DURHAM, N.H. – The UNH football team gets to keep the gun in its locker room for another year.

Now the Wildcats wait to see if they get to play more games this season.

UNH rose up on both defense and offense on a sunny Saturday afternoon to knock off bitter border rival Maine, 22-6, in Cowell Stadium to retain possession of the Brice-Cowell Musket that is awarded each year to the winner of the game.

Senior quarterback and captain Sean Goldrich (West Haven, Conn.) threw for one touchdown pass and ran for another and junior running back Dalton Crossan (Lake Ronkonkoma, N.Y.) scored a pair of TDs to pace the offense.

Senior linebacker Akil Anderson (Morristown, N.J.) led an aggressive Wildcat defense with 10 tackles, two of them for loss.

The defense shut down Maine's running game, had four quarterback sacks that helped lead to four turnovers and shut out the Black Bears through three quarters.

The Wildcats improved to 7-4 overall and 5-3 in the Colonial Athletic Association and stayed alive in their quest to qualify for the FCS tournament.

"I think we should be in (the tournament)," said UNH coach Sean McDonnell. "I just think the team's playing well right now. We beat a great Richmond team who beat William & Mary (on Saturday). We beat a good Colgate team who won the Patriot League. I hope tomorrow these kids get rewarded for staying the course and doing the right thing for 11 games."

UNH has qualified for the playoffs in each of the last 11 seasons.

The 24 teams in the field for the FCS tournament will be announced on Sunday at 11 a.m. on the NCAA Division I Selection Show on ESPNU.

If the Wildcats receive an at-large selection to the tournament and are granted a first-round home game on Saturday, Nov. 28, tickets will go on sale to the general public at noon on Monday. Season ticket holders will have the option to lock in their seats before tickets go on sale to the general public.

Tickets may be purchased by calling 1-800-745-3000 or online at ticketmaster.com.

The Wildcats, who were sitting at 3-4 after losing at Delaware on Oct. 24, have won their last four games.

UNH has won its last six and 13 of the last 14 games against Maine. One of the games was an FCS playoff contest.

Maine finished the season 3-8 overall and 3-5 in the CAA.

There are no guarantees that the Wildcats will make the playoffs, but they had to beat Maine to have a shot at being selected.

"All week it was kind of building up with the senior speeches and this possibly being the seniors' last game," Anderson said. "We knew there was a lot riding on this. It was just one of those games. It might be the last one so we had to cut it loose. . . . Even when they did get that one score, we stayed up. We didn't let them get the momentum. We just kept playing our game and we stuck with it and we had fun doing it."

Redshirt freshman defensive end Jae'Wuan Horton (Stafford, Va.) tackled quarterback Drew Belcher for a loss on Maine's third play of the game, causing a fumble that Cyrus Boone (Stockton, Calif.) recovered.

Four plays later, Crossan scored on a 2-yard pass from Goldrich and when junior Morgan Ellman (Scotch Plains, N.J.) kicked the conversion, UNH led 7-0, three minutes and 30 seconds into the game.

Crossan struck again early in the second period when he broke loose for an impressive 43-yard touchdown run.

"All the lineman have been doing an unbelievable job," Crossan said. "They opened up the hole and once I hit the second level I made one cut back to the right and kind of felt everybody over-pursuing back to the other side. So I just kept making that same move, getting back and then finally I got outside and Mike Kelly made a great block to finish up the touchdown."

Ellman's conversion kick was wide and UNH held on to the 13-0 lead at the half.

Goldrich ran for an 11-yard score and the Wildcats pushed the lead to 19-0 with 8:59 left in the third period. A rush for the conversion came up short.

Maine's John Hardy caught a 6-yard touchdown pass from Dan Collins in the first minute of the fourth quarter. Defensive tackle Jullian Turner (East Pittsburgh, Pa.) blocked the conversion kick and that was it for Maine's scoring.

Ellman tacked on a 25-yard field goal to close the scoring with 9:32 left in the game.

UNH held Maine to 69 yards rushing and the Black Bears had 334 yards of total offense.

The Wildcats had 379 yards of offense.

Goldrich completed 29 of his 47 passes for 286 yards and had one touchdown pass and was intercepted once.

Crossan rushed 16 times for 85 yards and had five pass receptions for 44 yards. Senior wide receiver Jared Allison (Cliffwood, N.J.) caught 10 passes for 81 yards.

Shorey had one and a half sacks and also forced a fumble. Junior linebacker Ryan Farrell (Westwood, Mass.) and Boone had the fumble recoveries for UNH and sophomore defensive Patrick Mensah (New City, N.Y.) and redshirt freshman defensive back Nick Marino (Hudson, N.H.) had interceptions. Turner and senior defensive back Keith Parkinson (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) had sacks and Horton had half a sack.

The battle for the musket helped the Wildcats focus on the task at hand this week, McDonnell said.

"When you're playing for something tangible, when you're playing for the gun, for the musket, it helps," he said. "These kids have had it in the locker room now and they've seen it for four years. They don't want to be the guys to let it go. That helps you focus everything on it and get away from all the distractions. Anybody talking about playoffs, anybody talking about anything. . . . All these kids by the middle of the week finally understood that if we don't win Saturday, we ain't having a discussion on Saturday night or Sunday morning. Let's do what we're supposed to do and hopefully people respect our work of 11 games. They take a look at it and we see what happens."