The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
New Haven charges past Southern Connecticut
UNH wins 12th straight over its rival, retains Elm City trophy
WEST HAVEN — Make it an even dozen.
Chris Pincince has never known the feeling of losing to his crosstown rival since taking over the head coaching reins at the University of New Haven in 2014. And the phrase printed on the t-shirt he wore following Saturday’s 38-9 win over Southern Connecticut State before an overflow, 4,186 at
DellaCamera Stadium drove home that fact.
“This is Our City,” read Pincince’s t-shirt, delivered to him by a UNH alum shortly after game ended.
“We take a lot of pride in winning this football game,” Pincince said. “It’s incredibly important to our school, our football program. It’s not an arrogant thing when we say it. It says a lot about our school.”
Connor Degenhardt threw for 355 yards and four touchdowns — two of them to Dev Holmes, including a 93-yarder that was the longest scoring play in UNH history in 21 years, and a 70-yarder to Javon Turner that got the Chargers on the scoreboard at the end of an otherwise sluggish first quarter.
Holmes finished with 199 yards receiving and Turner 133, on five catches apiece, as UNH (2-1) won its Northeast-10 season-opener and beat Southern for the 12th straight time, while keeping control of the Elm City trophy for an 11th straight year.
“We truly believe its our trophy,” said Pincince, who is 8-0 in the rivalry as a head coach and never lost to Southern as an assistant, either. “We truly believe this is the most important game we play all year. And our kids stepped up today.”
UNH’s margin of victory has been more than two touchdowns in their last dozen wins over the Owls, but this one was closer than the final score might indicate.
Early in the fourth quarter, Southern trailed 24-9 but had firstand-goal at the Chargers’ 7 yardline. Punch it in, score a two-point conversion and suddenly it’s a one
touchdown game.
But UNH’s defense held firm, turning the Owls over on downs. Two plays later, Degenhardt hit Holmes on the historic 93-yarder.
“They gave us the look we wanted,” Degenhardt explained. “We’d been saving that one up all game. I think it was a great play to get us out from our own goal-line, flip the field and score a touchdown. That felt great.”
The extra point gave UNH a 31-9 lead with 11:36 left.
“That was the dagger,” Holmes said. “They gave up after that.”
Less than a minute later, after a Southern fumble, Degenhardt hit Holmes with a 29-yard scoring pass.
UNH had come up with a big goal-line stand in the second quarter, as well. Joe Bernard, filling in for injured starting quarterback Jackson Ostrovsky, hit Ryan Soules on a 47-yard completion to the UNH 2 yard-line. But a couple of running plays and a negative pass play forced the Owls to settle for a 24-yard Szymon Gawlick field goal.
Three points on a pair of
first-and-goal opportunities wasn’t going to cut it for Southern (2-2, 1-1).
“Especially against a quality opponent we’re playing,” SCSU head coach Tom Godek said. “Field goals are good, maybe right at the end of the half or like last week for us. We look for touchdowns. We definitely need to score there.”
Added UNH linebacker Ryan Hodgins: “Our motto is ‘bend don’t break,’ so we kind of stuck to that. We did what we had to do. They had three field goals, and we were OK with that. We just didn’t want any touchdowns this week.”
Devonte Myles and Sam
Valerio each had interceptions for the Chargers, the latter’s returned 73 yards for a touchdown before being called back on a penalty.
Southern dominated time of possession in the first quarter, holding the ball for 10:20, yet settled for just a pair of Gawlick field goals. UNH owned a 7-6 lead at the end of the frame after Turner’s 70-yard catch on a beautifully-thrown fade by Degenhardt.
Turner, a UMass transfer, only arrived at UNH a week before training camp begain in August. But with four of the team’s top eight receivers injured, he knew he had to step up.
“Coming here, being able to score a 70-yard touchdown in a big game, it really meant a lot to me,” he said. “And I knew, coming into this game, it meant a lot for the team, the school and everyone out here.”
Southern certainly had injury issues of its own, with starting tailback T.J. Gardner and receiver Tylon Papallo sidelined by injury along with Ostrowsky.
“No excuse,” Godek said. “Other guys got to step up and play. I’m sure they had some injuries themselves. Proud of the guys, we’ve just got to do better with some of the simple, simple things. It wasn’t like it was something we weren’t prepared for. We’ve got to do better with our assignments.”
For an 11th straight year, however, this is the Chargers’ city.
“It’s big for the school, the alums, us as football players, the coaches, the university and the community,” Holmes said. “It’s a big rivalry, and the past decade it’s been New Haven’s trophy.”
More than a decade, in fact.