Big Green Comeback Quiets Yale
HANOVER – A 70-yard touchdown drive had given Yale a two-point lead with 37 seconds remaining in Saturday’s game at Dartmouth when a sports communication staffer for the Bulldogs told the media that neither coach Tony Reno nor his players would be making an appearance at the postgame press conference.
Maybe Reno had a premonition of what was to come.
With Dartmouth down two points and 14 seconds remaining, quarterback Grayson Saunier found Ky’dric Fisher for a 22-yard gain. After a Saunier carry to move the ball to the middle of the field and a timeout, Owen Zalc trotted on the field and booted a 51-yard field goal to give the Big Green a 17-16 come-from-behind victory.
Dartmouth improved to 3-1 overall with the win, but more importantly to 1-1 in the Ivy League. Yale dropped to 2-2 and 1-1 in conference play.
Although Zalc had missed from 31 and 56 yards earlier in the contest, Big Green coach Sammy McCorkle had complete faith that the two-time All-Ivy Leaguer, who kicked a winning 32-yard field goal with three seconds left to defeat Merrimack last year, would come through again with a game on the line.
“He’s been out there and done it before,” said McCorkle. “I thought it was all about the angles, which is why we centered it for him on the last play before the kick. I had confidence Owen would make it. And he had confidence.”
So did his teammates.
“Coming off the field,” Zalc said later, “everybody, everybody, and like, truly, truly everybody comes up to me and they're, ‘Hey, we have full faith in you.’ I mean, in the locker room, I forgot who said it, but somebody's like, ‘Yo, there was never a doubt on the sideline.’
“I mean it’s, just an incredible feeling having so much support, even after a rough start to the game.”
Zalc wouldn’t have had the opportunity to kick the winning field goal if two things hadn’t happened in the game’s final minute.
First, Yale finished off a 12-play, 70-yard drive with a four-yard jump pass for a touchdown from Dante Reno to Graham Smith to erase a 14-10 Dartmouth lead only to see freshman kicker Nick Piper’s PAT sail wide left. With that, a Zalc field goal wouldn’t mean overtime. It would win the game.
But only if Saunier and the Big Green offense could give him that chance.
McCorkle expected they would, and said as much to his players before sending the offense onto the field the final time.
“I told the guys when we huddled up,” the coach recalled, “ ‘Hey, we're going to do this, man. We are going to do this. You gotta believe it.’ And they did. They did.”
The winning rally started at the 25 with 37 seconds left with Saunier (15-for-22 for 158 yards) calmly finding Chris Corbo for eight yards on first down, and the clock stopping when the tight end went out of bounds.
Then it was a seven-yard completion to DJ Crowther for a first-down at the 40, with the clock stopping this time at 32 seconds the tailback went out of bounds.
After an incompletion and a five-yard Saunier scramble against pressure, McCorkle had to call time to stop the clock. Fourteen seconds were showing when Saunier took the next snap at the Dartmouth 45 and spotted Fisher, who has now made a must-have-it catch each of the Big Green’s last two wins, coming free.
Against Central Connecticut two week ago, the sophomore's only reception of the day was a 50-yard touchdown with 18 seconds left to rescue a Dartmouth win. This time he had only a six-yarder before making the clutch grab that set up Zalc’s game-winning kick.
Pressured in the pocket on the key play, Saunier was “trying to making something happen when Ky’Dric caught my eye,” the quarterback explained. “The defender was breaking out, so I had to throw him ‘in.’ “
Fisher dove and caught the ball at the 33, which Saunier fully expected he would.
“I mean, he's a stud,” the QB said. “We've got a bunch of studs and it's really cool to see the younger guys, sophomores, stepping up. You know any one of our guys can make that catch, but I'm really happy for Ky’Dric, and have full trust in him to make those plays. “
The end-game kick by Zalc capped a defensive battle that saw the Big Green held scoreless through three quarters, thanks in part to a missed field goal on its only possession of the first period. And to Yale’s defense bowing up and stopping Dartmouth four times after a first-and-goal at the one in the final two minutes of the second.
After three Yale stops, McCorkle could have marched Zalc out on fourth down to match the field goal the Bulldogs kicked midway through the second quarter and tie the score at 3-3. Instead the decision was to keep the ball in the hands of Saunier, who would finish the day with two rushing touchdowns, but on this play was taken down for a one-yard loss.
“I didn't second guess it,” McCorkle said of the decision to keep his kicker on the sideline. “We were going to go for it. We needed a touchdown. I wanted a touchdown. And you know what? We didn't get it (but) we didn't panic. We didn't freak out about it.”
The Dartmouth defense responded in kind when the Big Green’s opening drive of the second half lasted just four plays and the visitors proceeded to drive all the way from their own eight to the Dartmouth four, where they faced a third down. Needing just one yard, they would get two cracks at it against the Big Green defense.
On their first bid, 220-pound tailback Josh Pitsenberger, who would finish with 138 yards on 34 carries – without any lost yardage – got the ball and Dakota Quiñonez and Bruce Williams stopped him for no gain. On fourth down, Yale called Pitsenberger’s number again, and again Quiñonez made the stop, this time with help from Teddy Gianaris, turning the ball over on downs.
But the stop would go for naught as Yale defensive lineman Ezekiel Larry got a strip sack of Saunier on the third play of Dartmouth’s ensuing drive and the Bulldogs recovered on the Big Green seven. Dante Reno, who had more success on difficult passes than easy ones on this day, lofted a beauty to Nico Brown in the back corner of the end zone on the first play after the turnover. The touchdown and PAT gave Yale a 10-0 lead with 4:59 remaining in the third quarter.
With the prospect of an 0-2 Ivy League record that would put defending the championship in doubt, the Big Green responded like champions.
Taking over at his eight with time running down in the third quarter, Saunier proceeded to engineer a 92-yard drive in 11 plays, the last his own six-yard run for Dartmouth’s first points of the game early in the fourth quarter, making it 10-7.
Yale came right back with a drive to the Big Green 35, but on fourth-and-one, the Bulldogs chose a pass over a handoff to Pitsenberger and safety Sean Williams picked it off at his own 25 to give Dartmouth life.
Saunier caught a break when a roughing the passer call nullified an interception on the ensuing Big Green possession. The junior made the penalty doubly painful for the Bulldogs by finishing off a five-play, 75-yard drive by tiptoeing along the Yale sideline for a 37-yard touchdown and Dartmouth's first lead of the afternoon, 14-10, with 4:13 left.
That left it to Reno to give Yale its final, ill-fated lead with 37 seconds remaining.
For McCorkle, the end of the game was a reminder of a lesson he continues to impart on his team.
“Never quit,” he said. “Never doubt yourself. That’s not who we are. It’s not in our DNA. There's never a doubt in your mind. You just keep playing. You keep fighting.
“And I think the big thing and (the players) mentioned it, it's all about the preparation. You just don’t show up on Saturday and win the game.”
Although that's exactly what they did.
