The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Special delivery
Special teams lifts UNH to 10th straight win over rival SCSU
NEW HAVEN — The stands on both sides of Jess Dow Field were eerily quiet as one more special teams play was going to decide the annual showdown between the New Haven and Southern Connecticut State football teams.
Owls’ freshman kicker Gavin Toth, who hadn’t made a field goal longer than 30 yards this season, came up just short on a potential gametying 46yard field goal with less than 90 seconds remaining to allow visiting New Haven to escape with a 2320 victory on Saturday.
Somehow it seemed fitting to have the game’s final pivotal play come down to New Haven’s special teams considering the role that unit played in the Chargers topping their rivals for the 10th year in a row.
Freshman linebacker A.J. Repollet, a former Hamden Hall star who was at UConn at this point last year, blocked a pair of punts, Ju’an Williams had punt returns of 52 and 28 yards and the Chargers forced SCSU into some costly penalties on special
teams returns to constantly put the Owls in the shadow of their own goal line to start series.
“We lost a couple football games this year [due to special teams mistakes] and we really tried to stress it,” New Haven coach Chris Pincince said. “We put some really highcharacter people on there like A.J. Repollet out there, we really stressed the kickoff game, I think it really changed field position.”
The Chargers struck first when Josiah Shumaker recovered the first of Repollet’s blocked punts in the end zone.
“We knew that if we just rushed, they weren’t going to be able to block us,” Repollet said. “The second one that if it was there, we were going to have to do it.
“It is a dream come true, I feel like I can support my team and help out. That is all I want to do is to be there and be with my brothers. I am speechless.”
New Haven (43, 32 in the Northeast10) threatened to add to the lead driving inside the Owls’ 30 with the aid of a driveextending offsides penalty when New Haven was set to punt. Rich Souffrant forced an incompletion by pressuring New Haven quarterback Christian Lupoli and on the next play the sophomore from Stratford dropped into coverage and got his hands on a Lupoli pass. A pass on fourth down fell incomplete.
A pair of defensive penalties helped Southern Connecticut move the ball on the ensuing drive that ended with Jonmichael Bivona’s 37yard scoring run as he was untouched up the middle on the first offensive play of the second quarter.
New Haven converted twice on fourth down on the next possession and when Shamar Logan reversed field to get the ball to the 1, the Chargers were on the verge of regaining the lead. However, on third down Lupoli’s pass was tipped and intercepted by Mekhi Barnett.
The Owls (25, 23) converted on third down on a pass from Jackson Ostrowsky to Jaylynn Cundiff but the Owls were whistled for holding. One play after a short punt, Logan raced in for a 35yard touchdown to make it 147 with 3:52 left in the half.
New Haven had chances to add to the lead before half but Shawn Tafe, the Chargers’ leader with four interceptions, dropped an interception and on the next play, Ju’an Williams’ 81yard punt return for a touchdown was negated by a holding penalty.
The lead grew to 167 when Repollet came up with his second blocked punt of the game. It resulted in a safety when the ball bounced out of the back of the end zone.
A 39yard run by Logan and 19yard pass from Lupoli to Paul Cooper set up Chris Riggio’s 5yard scoring run to extend the lead to 237 with 6:30 left in the third quarter.
A 40yard reception by Izaiah Sanders set up Bivona for a 3yard scoring run, his second touchdown the game. The twopoint conversion pass was no good to keep the score 2313.
The Owls offense got the ball back thanks to a tackle by freshman linebacker Hasan Domick on a swing ball on third down. Ostrowsky capped a 72yard scoring drive with 2yard run with 6 minutes left to make it a 2320 game. Two players later Vance Upham pounced on a fumble to give the Owls a chance to end a ninegame losing streak to the Chargers. It almost happened as Julian Chung had a little daylight in the end zone but New Haven’s Tafe knocked the ball away. The Owls were able to extend the drive with a fourthdown completion from Ostrowsky to Cundiff. A holding penalty pushed the Owls back and on fourth down Gavin Toth’s 46yard field goal was just short with 1:24 remaining.
“You appreciate the effort of our players there,” Southern Connecticut State coach Tom Godek said. “We made some mistakes today and New Haven was able to capitalize on those. I thought our defense did a tremendous job, we gave up nine points in the kicking game today and if you look at the score, that was a major [factor] today.”