New Haven, Conn.
The Big Green entered its 100th meeting with its Ivy League rival favored on some internet sites by as many as 20 points. However, the visitors appeared out of sync on a natural-grass surface that became slick with second-half rain.
Dartmouth quarterback Jack Heneghan threw 57 times for 348 yards and a touchdown, but also had two passes intercepted. The junior’s final toss, intended for Hunter Hagdorn in the end zone, was picked off with less than a minute remaining and sealed the outcome.
Dartmouth committed eight penalties for 85 yards, including two late hits, a face-masking foul and an unsportsmanlike conduct violation. Hagdorn, a touted freshman from Texas, twice had apparent touchdown catches in his hands, but both times the ball popped loose before he could establish possession. His squad, which fell to visiting Pennsylvania last week, dropped to 2-2 overall and 0-2 in Ivy play.
In a bizarre finishing touch, Big Green coach Buddy Teevens and two of his players had their efforts to answer reporters’ postgame questions outside the stadium twice interrupted by an insistent Bulldogs fan. Bespectacled, bearded and wearing a baseball cap, the older gentleman made several loud queries of a nonsensical nature before asserting that he had once been arrested and charged with murder.
It was just a strange and dispiriting afternoon all around for the visitors.
“They feel horrible and I feel bad for them,” Teevens said of his troops, who led 10-0 late in the second quarter and hadn’t experienced back-to-back league losses since early in the 2013 season. “It’s a game we could have won and should have won, but we didn’t. (Yale) made plays at critical junctures and we didn’t and the result is we’re going home on a real quiet bus.”
The Bulldogs (1-3, 1-1), who had looked terrible at times in losing to Colgate, Cornell and Lehigh, delivered repeated, violent hits, sacked Heneghan three times and hurried him often. The Big Green’s offensive and defensive lines didn’t seem as overmatched as they did against Penn, but the hosts were clearly the more physical and opportunistic team.
“Down the stretch, one guy drops a pass he needs to catch and another guy misses a block he needs to make and the whole drive falls apart,” senior offensive tackle Dave Morrison said. “Guys just have to stay locked in and for one reason or another, some guys just fall short.”
Some weren’t even present. Dartmouth has lost defensive linemen Jackson Perry and Zach Husain and cornerback Danny McManus to injuries, the latter for the season because of a broken wrist. The unit brought back only one starter from last year’s co-championship team to begin with, and is starting be stretched thin.
“It’s tough not having those guys, but we have others who can step up,” Teevens said. “They have to learn young and that’s just the way it’s got to be. Injuries happen in the game and unfortunately we’ve had more of them this year than in the past.”
Dartmouth created the game’s first notable play when senior linebacker Folarin Orimolade stripped Yale quarterback Tre Moore and Lucas Bavarro recovered at the Bulldogs’ 25-yard line. Five plays later, Heneghan threw 13 yards to tight end Stephen Johnston for a touchdown. David Smith added the extra point for a 7-0 lead midway through the first quarter.
Yale missed a 40-yard field goal attempt on its next drive and Dartmouth answered with a 26-yard boot by Smith to push its lead to 10-0 with a minute remaining in the opening stanza. Not long after, Charlie Pontarelli had a fumble recovery to give the Big Green the ball at Yale’s 27-yard line. Five plays later, however, the visitors were stopped on fourth-and-3 from the 20.
Yale pulled within 10-7 with three minutes remaining in the second quarter, driving 77 yards in 13 plays and scoring on Alan Lamar’s 7-yard run. The Bulldogs took the lead at 14-10 just 22 seconds before halftime, aided by a late hit call on linebacker Justin Edwards. Moore threw a 14-yard touchdown to Reed Klubnik, who got behind cornerback Darius George and made the catch with one hand.
Dartmouth cut its deficit to 14-13 thanks to a 32-yard Smith field goal late in the third quarter. However, his team made six trips to the red zone overall and finished with virtually the same offensive yardage as the hosts, who led that category, 422-417. Yale’s 241 rushing yards were the most by a Big Green opponent in more than two years.
Heneghan completed 32 of 57 passes, but his squad managed only 69 rushing yards, its fewest since gaining 46 at Yale in 2014. Ten Big Green players caught at least two passes on the day, led by Drew Hunnicutt and Ryder Stone with five each for 77 and 69 yards, respectively. Jake Moen led Dartmouth with nine tackles.
Lost, for all intents and purposes, are Dartmouth’s hopes of defending the Ivy League title it shared last fall. Only three times during the league’s 60-year history has a team with two losses claimed at least part of the title, and the last time that occurred was 1982.
“Now it’s about building your program and execution and playing for pride and each other,” said Teevens, whose team next hosts Towson (Md.) University in its final nonleague contest. “I expect the guys to rally back. We need to just kind of regroup.
“Are there a whole lot of things that you need to do? Not really. Just finish some plays. Make that tackle, that throw, that catch, that cut. Don’t take that penalty. That’s the difference between success and failure on a day like this.”
Notes: Dartmouth last lost consecutive Ivy League games in 2011. … Yale leads the teams’ series, 50-44-6… Dartmouth was just 4-of-16 on third-down chances, while Yale was 8-of-17. The Big Green was 1-of-4 on fourth down, including a failure on fourth-and-2 at the Yale 40-yard line early in the fourth quarter when Miles Smith took a handoff and immediately slipped down on the wet grass. … Attendance was announced at 9,923. A reasonable estimate would have been 2,000 in the 64,246-seat stadium.