NEW YORK — Ryan Bloch embraced Nick Howard outside the Dartmouth College football locker room after Saturday’s game, telling him, “Thank you for giving me another chance.”
Bloch’s first field-goal attempt of the fourth quarter clanged off the left upright, but Howard, after re-entering a tie game with just over a minute to go, led the Big Green down the field with no timeouts to set up Bloch for a chance to win it. The senior kicker was true from 32 yards away to give Dartmouth a 27-24 victory over Columbia at Wien Stadium and snap a four-game skid.
“I can’t thank my team enough for giving me another chance,” Bloch said. “Our offense moving it down the field in that last minute with no timeouts was something else. My heart was beating out of my chest. Legs shaking, fingers shaking, but I stayed true to what I do every day in practice.”
The Big Green (2-4, 1-2 Ivy League) needed Saturday’s victory badly to maintain any hope of a conference championship, but early on, neither they nor the Lions (3-3, 0-3) seemed particularly interested in winning. Each team fumbled the ball away twice and made several mistakes on special teams, and Dartmouth let a 24-9 second-half lead slip away before winning in the final seconds.
Columbia, thanks largely to a 51-yard Joey Giorgi run, brought the ball to the Dartmouth 1-yard line on its first possession, but a high snap led to a chase for the ball, with junior Tyson McCloud recovering it for the Big Green on the 26.
After the teams traded punts, Dartmouth took advantage of a short field to take an early lead when junior quarterback Dylan Cadwallader hit senior receiver Jonny Barrett on a slant for a 6-yard touchdown.
“(Cadwallader) is a competitor,” Howard said. “He prepares to win, takes care of stuff during the week, and he’s a talented athlete.”
The Big Green’s stiff red zone defense held the Lions to field goals on their next two drives, sandwiched around a fumbled snap by Cadwallader. Dartmouth was looking at another punt on its ensuing possession, but Bryson Canty muffed the return and long snapper Josh Greene recovered. The offense took advantage, scoring on a trick play as receiver Paxton Scott took an end-around handoff and threw to a wide-open Jarmone Sutherland for the 5-yard score.
Columbia managed one more field goal before the half, and the Big Green responded with Bloch’s 22-yard field goal on their first series out of the break. The Lions then started the next drive inside their own 10 after fumbling the kickoff return out of bounds, and following a three-and-out, fifth-year Robert Crockett III burst into the backfield to block the punt, with sophomore Tevita Moimoi recovering in the end zone to put Dartmouth ahead by 15.
“It was just weird,” Big Green coach Buddy Teevens said. “A blocked punt, a missed (snap), a missed field goal. It was a strange ballgame.”
The special teams touchdown could have sapped the life out of Columbia, but buoyed by a lively homecoming crowd, the Lions battled back. They made it a one-score game late in the third quarter, and following Bloch’s missed 39-yarder, they evened the score with less than 2½ minutes to go in the fourth.
Columbia used two pass interference penalties on the game-tying drive to get down the field before quarterback Caden Bell, making his first collegiate start, found tight end Luke Painton for a 14-yard touchdown.
“That was good to see. We never gave up,” Lions coach Al Bagnoli said. “Our ability to run the football effectively was encouraging. You can certainly take some positives, and at the same time, there’s so much we can do better.”
Cadwallader trotted back onto the field to try to lead a two-minute drill, but on the second play of the drive, Columbia’s Justin Townsend chased him down and stripped the ball, with Reid Spachman recovering for the Lions. Dartmouth’s defense got a stop, though, and caught a huge break when Alex Felkins’s 29-yard field goal attempt drifted wide.
With Cadwallader banged up on the previous strip-sack, the Big Green turned back to Howard, who has been primarily a running quarterback throughout his Dartmouth career but worked hard on his throwing in the offseason.
Howard’s first pass went to his top security blanket, Scott, and the junior found space along the left sideline for a 28-yard gain. A screen to sophomore running back Q Jones picked up 11 more, and Howard found Scott again down the middle for another 26 before racing up the field to spike the ball, setting the stage for Bloch to redeem himself.
“I had all the confidence in the world from everyone on the sideline,” Bloch said. “Everyone was bringing me up and saying, ‘We know you can do it, just go do it.’ ”
Scott had his best game of the year, with 104 receiving yards on six catches in addition to throwing a touchdown pass. Cadwallader finished 8-for-15 passing for 116 yards, and Howard completed five of his eight passes for 77 yards.
The Big Green will be back at Memorial field next Saturday, when Harvard visits Hanover for homecoming.
“This is huge in terms of growth and development,” Teevens said. “We have a tough stretch coming up, but this will certainly help prepare us. Guys were ecstatic. The celebration, we’ve missed that, and you don’t want to take that for granted. It’s hard to win.”
Benjamin Rosenberg can be reached at brosenberg@vnews.com or 603-727-3302.