With the score 10-3 in favor of Trinity and time winding down, the Tufts football team looked like it would be able to pull off its second miraculous comeback in as many weeks and send the game into overtime.
Senior quarterback Tom McManama hit junior running back Pat Bailey down the right sideline for a 65-yard completion on third and 11 with under five minutes remaining in regulation, giving Tufts the ball on Trinity's 20-yard line.
But soon after, following two consecutive plays which netted negative eight yards, the Jumbos were once again faced with another long third-down situation. On third and 18, McManama found first-year wide receiver Mike Howell for a gain of five, setting up a huge fourth and 13.
On the critical play, McManama took the snap, rolled out to his right and fired a 14-yard completion to junior wide receiver Billy Mahler for the first down. The clutch reception gave Tufts four plays to score from Trinity's nine-yard line, but the Jumbos failed to find the end zone and wound up dropping the game to the Bantams.
Tufts' best scoring opportunity came on first down when McManama threw to a wide-open Nick Croteau in the end zone. However, the sophomore tight end could not haul in the pass, and the ball fell incomplete. On second down, a four-yard completion to senior fullback Noah Hatfield-Biondo was nullified by an illegal touching penalty, and on third down, McManama completed a six-yard pass to Mahler at the Trinity four-yard line. The offense would move no farther than that, as McManama's fourth-down throw to freshman tight end Nick Kenyon fell incomplete.
The story of the game was Trinity's run defense, which held the Jumbos to a net total of 16 yards on the ground. Top tailbacks Bailey and senior Darren Ferguson combined for just 29 yards on 17 carries, which forced the offense to punt on its first seven possessions. The Jumbos' offense never had the ball for more than two minutes at a time throughout the first half and did not collect a first down until its final possession just before halftime.
"Trinity has a great rush defense, and they did a really good job of filling the gaps," McManama said. "They definitely made it tough because we ended up having a lot of long second and third downs where they knew we were going to pass."
The lack of a Tufts running game enabled Trinity to put an enormous amount of pressure on McManama, resulting in five sacks and four additional quarterback hits throughout the contest. Junior linebackers Francois Auzerais and Ben Sherry led the Bantams with 11 tackles apiece. The Trinity defense, which held Tufts to 43 yards in the first half, stopped the Jumbos' offense for a loss 15 different times throughout the course of the game. However, McManama stood behind his offensive line and shouldered the blame for most of Trinity's sacks.
"I thought our line played extremely well, but Trinity's defensive line is excellent," McManama said. "Two or three of those sacks came on roll-out plays where I either should have thrown the ball away or made a move to get by their rush end."
While Trinity's defense was impressive, the Jumbos' defensive unit also had a great game. Prior to Saturday's game, Trinity's lowest offensive output was 26 points in a victory over Williams. The Bantams were averaging 33 points per game coming into the contest, but the Tufts defense was able to limit them to a mere 10 on Saturday.
Despite all of their defensive success, however, the Jumbos could not stop the Bantams in the third quarter when Trinity took over possession on their own 30-yard line. The Jumbos did force the Bantams into a punting situation when Trinity faced a fourth and one on their own 44 yard line, but a fake punt run yielded four yards and a first down at the Trinity 48-yard line. From there, junior quarterback Craig Drusbosky completed two big passes to classmate Michael Galligan and then ran the ball into the end zone from the six-yard line on second and goal.
Next weekend the Jumbos will travel to Williams College (3-1), where they will face an Ephs team coming off of a 37-27 victory over Middlebury. The Ephs' lone setback of 2009 came in the second week of the season when they lost to Trinity by a score of 26-21.
Despite the heartbreaking loss, both McManama and senior quad-captain Tom Tassinari are fully confident that their team will once again bounce back.
"When you lose you tend to look at your errors even more," Tassinari said. "We talked as a team about thinking about the loss [on Saturday] and now we are going to move forward starting with practice on Monday."
"It's in the past, and there's nothing we can do about it now," McManama added. "We just need to learn from our mistakes and move on. We're going to come out fired up and hungry [next] Saturday."
