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Other than a stretch of 2 1/2 quarters against a winless American International College team, much of the early portion of the season for the University of New Haven has shown there is a lot of growing left to be done.
When the Chargers took the field on Saturday afternoon with former head coach Tom Bell and plenty of alumni in the stands, the goal was not just to keep on winning but to look like the team that is coming off a conference championship.
Playing the team's most complete game in 2022, the Chargers rolled to a 35-7 win over visiting Pace at DellaCamera Stadium to remain in first place in the Northeast-10 Conference standings. New Haven won its fifth game in a row and 16th straight regular-season conference game.
"We grew up a little bit as far as offensively not turning the ball over and doing the things we needed to do," New Haven coach Chris Pincince said. "Connor Degenhardt (Westford, Mass./Westford Academy) made a couple of plays there and defensively, I think they did a great job because that is the third different style of offense that we have seen in the last three weeks.
They have done a great job of communicating and really handled things really well today."
The defense had a shutout until Pace's final drive of the game. Many of the starters had been taken out with the game's outcome no longer in question.
Seeing the defense dominate is nothing new. However, the offense rebounded after a mistake-prone win at Saint Anselm a week ago.
"We have been looking forward to put together a full team effort,"
said Degenhardt, who threw three touchdown passes. "Our defense did an amazing job today and as an offense, we finally took care out of our job, extended the lead and put them away very early in the game.
"As an offense, we have had a lot of wins that don't feel like wins.
We aren't playing well as a unit, we aren't finishing, we are shooting ourselves in the foot, but we know that when we play our best football, the only people who can stop us are ourselves."
The next man up philosophy could be seen throughout the game with senior tight end Dante DeLorenzo (Kennebunk, Maine/Kennebunk) not only catching his first career pass but getting into the end zone.
"We play everybody," Pincince said. "We rotate guys in there and we need some growing pains in the first month of the season when you are not doing things that you think you should be doing but hopefully it is planting the seeds for later on in the season. I think you can see that when guys like Dev O'Malley make plays on defense and the triumvirate up front, David Abolarinwa (New Bedford, Mass./New Bedford) up front, Chisom Okoro (Cheshire, Conn./Cheshire), that is the second defensive line making plays."
Two plays by the defense turned what might have been a competitive game into a blowout.
The Setters were threatening to cut into a 21-point lead when safety Devonte Myles (Yonkers, N.Y./Archbishop Stepinac) intercepted a pass by Pace quarterback Carlton Aiken.
"We were up 21-0 to start the second half, they drive the ball and start moving the ball slowly," Pincince said. "We end up turning them over and not giving up points. I think that was really important to not come up with points down 21-0 and probably lost 8-10 minutes off the clock was really important."
Myles is one of the veteran leaders on defense and he was happy to be the one to make that play.
"I kind of knew that they wanted an inside route so was able to cheat a little bit and grab onto it," Myles said.
Aiken is not only a strong-armed thrower, but he is fourth in the conference in rushing yards per game. The defensive line had to maintain their discipline to keep Aiken from making plays with his legs. Given a chance to make a play, Chisom Okoro (Cheshire, Conn./Cheshire) forced a fumble that led to a New Haven TD.
"I lined up on the inside, saw him running so I just tried to knock him down," Okoro said. "I didn't expect a forced fumble out of it."
"It definitely gave us a shift of momentum, I was one of the many positives of today."
The Chargers not only contained Aiken but did the same with electrifying kickoff returner Ramir Tann-Davis as he averaged 16.3 yards on four returns.
The Chargers scored on the opening drive of the game for the fourth game in a row.
A scramble on third down by Degenhardt extended drive and set up 40-yard TD run for Ais off the left side. Center Will Ayers had a seal block while guard Justin Petzold (Farmingdale, N.Y./Farmingdale) and tackle Justin Cesaire (Orange, N.J./Orange) gave Ais a huge hole to run through.
On the next drive, Dev Holmes (Troy, N.Y./Troy) took a pitch and had no room to run around right end so he reversed his field and rumbled for 39 yards.
Pace was called for a penalty after the play. That set up a touchdown pass from Degenhardt to Zhyaire Fernandes (Stratford, Conn./Bunnell). Degenhardt avoided the pass rush and had a chance to run for some yards when he spotted Fernandes open and flipped the ball to him for the score.
The New Haven defense limited the big plays from Pace's dual-threat quarterback with David Onyemem (Dracut, Mass./Central Catholic) and Jack Quander (Gainsville, Va./Patriot) making key third down stops when Carlton Aiken looked to have some running room.
The biggest defensive play of the first half was made by Chisom Okoro (Cheshire, Conn./Cheshire) as he hit Aiken from behind to force a fumble. Onyemem scooped up the ball in front of the Pace sideline and returned it to the Setters' 3.
New Haven's lead grew to three scores when an uncovered Dante DeLorenzo (Kennebunk, Maine/Kennebunk) had the 3-yard touchdown grab as he was unaccounted for by the Pace defense as he leaked out into the flat. By the time Pace's T'khi Wood-Smith reacted, DeLorenzo was snuck inside the pylon to turn his first career catch into a touchdown.
"I don't think I've seen anybody that excited when they score a touchdown," Degenhardt said of DeLorenzo. "It is great that he is able to get in there. We have been saying for a couple of weeks that we thought we might be able to get him in the end zone and today it worked out perfectly. We works hard all the time and it is great that he is able to get rewarded after all of these years in the program."
New Haven had a chance to add to the lead before halftime thanks to a 37-yard catch by Holmes on a deep ball. However, Degenhardt was engulfed by a pair of Pace defenders on fourth down to end the scoring threat.
Chris Carlyle (Rockville, Md./Walter Johnson) had a 22-yard TD catch and Hunter Cobb (Sandy Hook, Conn./Newtown) added a 20-yard run to push the lead to 35-0.
Pace averted the shutout with an 11-yard pass from Aiken to Teddy Harper with 3:56 left to play.
While New Haven was hoping to celebrate with a shutout, the late touchdown didn't spoil what was an impressive effort by the defense that had to replace many of the key players from a season ago.
"It is amazing to see because they are brand new and when we met in the summer, we didn't have that same connection," Myles said. "Week by week we have seen improvement. There are new guys who are playing really fast and making some big plays for us."
The emphatic win over a Pace team that only trailed Assumption by three points going into the fourth quarter in a recent game sent a message that this New Haven team starting to figure things out. Doing this in front of so many alumni made the win all the more special.
"We had a group of alumni at practice yesterday that spoke to our team," Pincince said. "The captain of the 1992 team John Raba spoke to our team last night and there were guys that we on the field. I welcome all the guys back all the time and it was great to honor Coach Bell and looked like there were 30 of his team members that were here to honor him for the Hall of Fame. It is a great time. This is a great environment and I hope we do some of the same things next week when we play Post."
Onyemem led the Chargers with eight tackles, Joe Vitale (North Haven, Conn./North Haven) added six stops while Damon Burton had two tackles for loss.
Cobb had 59 rushing yards and Ais added 54 for the Chargers.
