The Worcester Polytechnic Engineers recently learned the hard way that you won’t win football games if you can’t hold onto the football.
Rensselaer recovered three WPI fumbles and turned them into 21 points, well more than the margin of victory in Saturday’s Transit Trophy game, a 34-26 victory for the visiting Engineers from Troy.
The game could easily have been a blowout win for RPI—their first three possessions all started in Worcester territory. But Rensselaer’s first play from scrimmage was an interception to WPI’s Miguel Concepcion. Their second drive ended when Dan Cole was sacked for a loss of 12 yards on fourth down. The third drive finally found the end zone on a two-yard Jay Bernardo carry that made the score 7-0 after the extra point. But the visiting Engineers could easily have been up by as much as three touchdowns less than ten minutes into the game, a point that was brought home by WPI’s play in the rest of the half.
The homestanding Engineers returned the kick to their own 20, and then took just over two minutes to drive 80 yards, capped by a six-yard Billy Orfalea touchdown run. A missed kick left WPI behind by a point.
Rensselaer’s offense continued to look shaky—they put together a couple of first downs after Jai Echols picked off a Ryan Jennette pass at the RPI 43, but that drive sputtered just inside the WPI 20-yard line, and Matt Verenini’s 35-yard field goal attempt was wide left. WPI took over and again drove 80 yards, with Orfalea scoring his second touchdown of the day to put RPI behind for the first time this season. Matt Guigli added another score with 26 seconds left to put the Engineers from Troy in a 20-7 hole at halftime.
The second half began with an exchange of punts, turned to RPI’s favor when Echols came up big once again: He forced WPI returner Dan DeBiasio to fumble and pounced on the ball, giving the visitors their best field position of the day at the WPI 13-yard line. Five plays later, an Otis Williams touchdown closed the gap to six points.
Late in the third quarter, RPI regained the lead when Cole tossed a 33-yarder to wide receiver Pat Hughes, who beat several defenders to reach the end zone. A Verenini kick made the score 21-20.
The home team wasn’t done yet. Two drives later, Jennette sliced up the Rensselaer defense, completing several medium-range passes to move the ball 83 yards for a Ben Achin touchdown. A failed two-point conversion left WPI up by five with eight minutes to play.
Cole then came out and demonstrated why he owns 15 school passing records, including the new career attempts mark that he set on Saturday. After a pair of short passes to Flynn Cochran, Cole spotted Dan Stephens a step ahead of his defender and put the ball right on the money, allowing Stephens to make the catch in stride and outsprint the WPI defense 62 yards to the end zone to retake the lead for good. A fumble by WPI quarterback Adam Ralston at his own 25 led to another quick RPI touchdown by Jon Branche, making the score 34-26 with two minutes remaining.
Ralston came out and made two quick completions to get the ball just across midfield, but three stops by RPI brought up fourth-and-10. Ralston completed a pass to Orfalea, but a huge tackle by Mike Defilippi stopped him short of the line-to-gain, and RPI was able to run the clock out for the win.
Rensselaer’s special teams continue to improve—Ed Garcia, recognized last week as a Special Teams Player of the Week by D3football.com, again put most of his kickoffs into the end zone. RPI’s kick and punt coverages were solid, and punter Collin Adalian had a busy game, turning in seven punts for 250 yards, including two that were downed inside the opponents’ 20-yard line. RPI’s returns were also good, averaging over 20 yards on kickoffs and 12 yards on punts.
On defense, RPI had a hit-and-miss game, giving up a lot of yardage but few very long gains and getting big plays when they needed them. The Engineers from Troy forced four turnovers and sacked the WPI quarterbacks three times, but allowed Orfalea to rush for 134 yards and showed weakness in covering the middle of the field. Echols was the star of the day, making 12 solo tackles and accounting for two turnovers.
RPI’s high-powered offense was held to only 295 total yards, mostly due to the offensive line being dominated by WPI’s defensive line. Rensselaer was able to rush for only 73 yards, and Cole was sacked six times.
For the Engineers from Worcester, the last two games—both tight losses to top UCAA teams—have served notice that WPI will be a contender for the conference title when they join the UCAA next year along with Coast Guard and Kings Point.
For Joe King’s Engineers, the game goes into the books as a win, but the way the offense has faltered in two of three games so far this season is undoubtedly the team’s top concern as they look ahead to what has typically been a difficult part of their schedule: RPI’s next three games are against Rochester, Union, and—after a week off—Hartwick.
Last year, the Engineers put up a poor first-half performance before scoring 24 unanswered points to defeat the Yellowjackets 31-19. The Engineers were dominated by the Dutchmen in 2002, turning the ball over six times in a lopsided 32-14 loss. And Rensselaer barely squeaked out a 39-38 win over the Hawks after the Hartwick holder, forced to pick the ball up on a extra point attempt with seconds remaining in the game, overthrew a wide-open receiver for what would have been the go-ahead two-point conversion.
