CCSU Moves to 4-2 After 31-29 Defeat of Duquesne
By Brittany Burke
The CCSU football team’s (4-2, 3-0 NEC) road to 12 consecutive home victories wasn’t easy, but the Blue Devils got it done and were able to celebrate homecoming weekend with a 31-29 win over the Duquesne Dukes (3-3, 1-2 NEC).
“A win is a win is a win,” said Head Coach Jeff McInerney. “You’ve got to learn to play in tight games; you’ve got to learn to have confidence to make the play. You always give your opponent respect and championship teams win games like this.”
One call stood between the Blue Devils’ win and a possible over time. With 2:07 left to play in the game the Dukes scored a touchdown to put the team behind CCSU by eight points. The Dukes managed to force the Blue Devils into a fourth and ten situation, which CCSU opted to punt away.
The Dukes began their final drive of the game with 1:37 left in regulation time and took the ball 89 yards in 12 plays to score the second touchdown in two minutes as time on the clock expired with a new score of 31-29.
Down by two and desperate for an overtime situation the Dukes attempted to get the two point conversion. As Duquesne quarterback Sean Patterson threw the ball the CCSU crowd held their breaths. The pass initially looked good, which would have forced an overtime and possible loss for CCSU.
Moments later the pass was signaled incomplete, when Duquesne receiver stepped out of bounds before coming back into the end zone for the catch. With the incomplete ruled on the field, the CCSU football team was finally able to celebrate its third NEC win of the season.
“Basically we were at a coverage called money. I had my zone, play came down to the last minute, he was out of bounds luckily and we were able to pull it off,” said Dominic Rose. “Luckily the ref called it because one ref didn’t call it and one ref called it, but it wasn’t his call to make and the game was over.”
The outcome of the game should not have been decided by the official’s call. The Blue Devils built up an early lead against the Dukes in the first quarter 10-0. True freshman wide receiver, Chris Tolbert made a name for himself against the Dukes scoring CCSU’s first touchdown of the game.
Early in the second Gunnar Jespersen found Josue Paul for 64-yards and another seven points, making the score 17-0 for the Blue Devils. The homecoming game was Paul’s first game of the season after a suspension from the team, but it is obvious that he is back and ready to make things happen for CCSU.
“Today’s my first day… It’s gonna be great because I’m gonna make his [Jespersen] job easier and he knows that,” Paul said.
Paul and Jespersen haven’t worked together since last spring, but that doesn’t worry Paul. “Gunnar’s a great quarterback, hes’ an easy learner so he’ll get used to it because we did have some time in the spring so he knows where I want the ball where I like it so it shouldn’t be hard at all.”
Duquesne steadily began to close in on the point gap early in the third with a 48-yard touchdown run from Larry McCoy. The run by McCoy shortened the Dukes’ point deficit to four. CCSU had trouble containing McCoy all afternoon, allowing him to rush for 246 of the team’s 290 yards.
“We took a step back…we obviously didn’t play the run,” said Coach McInerney. “There’s no way you can design a defense and have a guy pop out of there three or four times for 60 yards a clip, we got a lot of work to do.”
CCSU managed to regain a comfortable lead until late in the fourth. Everette Benjamin had another big showing, rushing for 146 of CCSU’s 200 net rushing yards, making homecoming his fourth game of the season to go for more than 100 yards. Even with a go-to man in Benjamin, Jespersen spread the ball to multiple outlets.
CCSU enters the bye week next weekend followed by a road trip to Albany on Oct. 22. “We are a team that’s ready for out bye week we competed very very hard it wasn’t pretty at times and we have a lot of things to take care of on our end if we want to win a championship, which is what we plan on doing,” said Coach McInerney.
CCSU comes back home Halloween weekend to take on Wagner on Oct. 30 at 12 p.m.