Fairfield, Conn.
Those terms all apply to the Dartmouth College football season thus far, a campaign that continued Saturday with a 29-26 victory at Sacred Heart. The Big Green (5-0) is one of only four teams in Ivy League history to win four games by a combined eight points or less during a season. It hosts undefeated Columbia next Saturday.
This time, it took late interceptions by Kyran McKinney-Crudden and Jack Traynor to make Emory Thompson’s touchdown catch with 12 minutes remaining stand up. That reception brought Dartmouth back from a 12-point deficit and resulted in its 10th consecutive nonconference victory, the program’s longest such streak since the Ivy League’s 1956 formation.
“It’s a special team, but you’re only as good as your last game, so we have to stay focused,” said Thompson, who caught six passes for 49 yards and two touchdowns. “And what is it about the first half? We have to answer that question.”
Dartmouth trailed Holy Cross by a point at intermission before beating Holy Cross in overtime. It needed to score on the game’s last play to win at Pennsylvania and staged the biggest comeback in the program’s 136-year history (21 points) to edge Yale last week. Even during the season opener, a rout at Stetson, the Big Green led by only three points at the break.
Dartmouth was behind, 23-14, at halftime Saturday. The Pioneers (2-4) had successfully thrown repeated bubble screens into the flat and when Josh Freiria kicked his second field goal of the game five minutes into the third quarter, SHU had scored 13 consecutive points and held a 26-14 lead. The hosts were coming off a bye week and had clearly broken down plenty of video on the Big Green.
“They studied us well,” Dartmouth coach Buddy Teevens said. “It was hot and humid and we sagged and didn’t tackle well.
“In the second half, they tried to run the ball more and use the clock and our guys responded well. (Sacred Heart was) in more second-and-longs and those aren’t bubble-screen situations.”
Traynor, whose 12 tackles trailed only McKinney-Crudden’s 13 among the visitors, said a halftime adjustment helped. Dartmouth walked its safeties closer to the line of scrimmage, allowing its linebackers more freedom to roam laterally.
“We weren’t going to allow that to keep happening,” said Traynor, a 230-pound junior listed at 6 feet who set the Illinois high school career record for tackles. “We’re not starting games right, and then we have to wake up in the second half. With Columbia, we probably can’t save ourselves that way.”
Dartmouth quarterback Jack Heneghan completed 14 of 21 passes for 247 yards and four touchdowns. That included a 78-yard strike on the game’s first play from scrimmage to Drew Hunnicutt, who had three catches for 126 yards and a score. The visitors had only 125 rushing yards, with Ryder Stone amassing 54 in 14 carries and Miles Smith 40 yards in nine touches. Receiver Drew Estrada had 127 all-purpose yards, 12 rushing, 55 receiving and 60 on kickoff returns.
Sacred Heart, from the Northeast Conference, forged a 7-7 tie on a 16-yard touchdown pass during the fourth minute. Stone caught an 8-yard scoring pass from Heneghan and David Smith added the second of his three extra points for a 14-7 advantage five minutes before the opening stanza’s conclusion.
The Pioneers pulled even at 14 on a 31-yard touchdown catch three minutes into the second quarter and went up, 20-14, on a 20-yard touchdown reception 6:30 before intermission. SHU’s extra-point try was blocked, but it added the first of Freiria’s field goals as the first half expired and took every bit of momentum off Campus Field with them.
An announced crowd of 5,569, the largest in program history, applauded and happily went in search of sustenance.
The hosts took a 26-15 lead five minutes into the third quarter on a 24-yard boot by Freiria. The teams exchanged punts, the latter returned 57 yards by Dylan Mellor, on the job because usual returner Danny McManus, also a starting cornerback, was out of the game with a broken finger. Mellor’s dash set up Dartmouth at the Sacred Heart 4-yard line and four plays later, Heneghan hit Thompson with a 2-yard touchdown pass.
Down, 26-21, the Big Green regained the lead with 12 minutes to play. Heneghan threw 5 yards to Thompson for the touchdown and fired to Hunnicutt for Dartmouth’s first 2-point conversion in 10 years and a 29-26 lead.
“I have a lot of faith in Jack,” said Thompson, who’s also a standout tackler on kick coverage. “I know he’s never going to waver, so we all stay calm and collected.”
Punter Davis Brief got off a 10-yard kick to end Dartmouth’s next possession, but came up with a 48-yard effort from his own end zone with two minutes remaining. That punt followed McKinney-Cruden’s interception at the Big Green’s 2-yard line and preceded Traynor’s seal-the-deal pick at the Sacred Heart 25-yard line with 40 seconds on the clock.
Snapper Grant Jaffe sprinted down to help with the tackle after Brief’s last boot, a subtle but substantial contribution.
Told that his hair appeared a tad more gray after the game than before it started, Teevens cracked a small smile.
“I’m about ready to tear it all out,” the coach said, lamenting his team’s slow start, four penalties for 39 yards and substitution difficulties. “It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t the most energetic or enthusiastic approach we’ve taken. This wasn’t our best performance, but we rallied.”
Dartmouth played without top receiver Hunter Hagdorn, who’s nursing an ankle injury, and Charles Mack, who’s out for the season with an Achilles tendon tear. Rushing quarterback threat Jared Gerbino stayed home to recuperate from various ailments, as did cornerback Jarius Brown and defensive linemen Charlie Pontarelli and Jackson Perry. The latter is likely done for the fall after suffering a knee injury last week.
Tris Wykes can be reached at twykes@vnews.com or 603-727-3227.