Nine was most definitely not a lucky number for the University of New Haven football team in its season opener.
The Chargers, ranked 16th in the preseason Division II poll, was one defensive stop away from returning home with a win over eighth ranked Bowie State.
However, Dion Golatt connected with Kwincy Hall on a 9-yard touchdown pass with nine seconds left as the Bulldogs escaped with a 27-20 victory in the season opener for both teams.
"There is not too much to say, we let this one slide out," New Haven receiver Dev Holmes (Troy, N.Y./Troy) said. We had them beat and we let it slip away from us.
One more play on offense, special teams and defense would have won this game."
New Haven scored 17 straight points as a 29-yard field goal by Briant DeFelice (Massapequa, N.Y./Farmingdale) was followed by a pair of touchdown passes from Connor Degenhardt (Westford, Mass./Westford Academy) to Holmes. The second of the scoring passes came on the opening drive of the third quarter to give the Chargers a 17-7 lead.
New Haven had a total of 14 yards in the next five drives and the inability to add to the 10-point lead proved costly.
New Haven ran 19 plays in Bowie State territory in the first half and came away with just the one touchdown and 10 total points.
It was still a 17-7 game heading into the fourth quarter when the Bowie State offense began to get going.
The scoring in the final quarter started with a 33-yard scoring run by Samuel Doku with 8:25 left. Before that play, the longest run for the Bulldogs was for only six yards against a tough New Haven defense.
Just 80 seconds later, a blown coverage allowed Morgan Scroggins to race in for a 68-yard catch and run to give Bowie State the 19-17.
However, the Bulldogs failed to convert the conversions after both scores, giving New Haven the chance to take the lead with a field goal.
That is exactly what happened as Degenhardt completed 5 of 6 passes for 41 yards with the key play a 21-yard completion to Kasi Hazzard (Hillside, N.J./Edison) to set up DeFelice for the 29-yard field goal with 1:27 left to play to give the Chargers the 20-19 lead.
Bowie State converted on a pair of third-down plays to keep the final drive alive.
"We wanted to come out with the win," said New Haven linebacker David Onyemem (Dracut, Mass./Central Catholic), who led New Haven with seven tackles. "I think our team realizes that we have a lot of work to do. We still have a lot of talent on this team, we just have to pull together at the end and be able to finish games better than what we put on today. Emotion wise, the team is not in the greatest spirits, but we have a lot of leaders on the team that are going to pull everybody together and keep this thing moving forward in the right direction."
Bowie State took the 7-0 lead on Keshane Hinckley's 18-yard touchdown catch with 8:30 left in the first quarter. Hinckley finished with 106 yards on seven catches.
The Chargers got on the board on a 29-yard field goal by DeFelice early in the second quarter.
The New Haven defense forced a Bowie State punt from the end zone late in the first half to give the Chargers the chance to go in front right before halftime.
New Haven converted on just 3 of 15 third-down plays. The first number isn't as concerned to Pincince as the second one. One of the keys to the game was staying out of third and long.
"No, I don't want to be in third down, they have four great pass rushers, they have maybe the best pass rusher in the country in Josh Pryor so being in third down and long is not a good place to be," New Haven coach Chris Pincince said. "We didn't do a good job running the football to get it into manageable down and distance. We end up sitting there, they rush four guys and one of them is probably the best player in the country, we don't do a good job of protecting, we have to do a better job of running the football."
New Haven finished with 18 net rushing yards in 30 carries.
The Chargers were outgaining Bowie State 212-135 after three quarters, but in the fourth quarter, the Bulldogs had 226 yards on 22 plays compared to 65 yards for New Haven on 19 offensive plays.
"The first half on offense not putting points on the board and we didn't make any plays on defense [on the last drive]," Pincince said.
"We let them go [73] yards in the end, but offensively we couldn't put them away a long time before that."
A bright spot on offense was the return of receiver Chris Carlyle (Rockville, Md./Walter Johnson), who missed all of last season with a knee injury. Carlyle, who grew up about 30 minutes from the Bowie State campus, led New Haven with six receptions and his 71 receiving yards were second only to the 93 recorded by Holmes.
"Having a receiver like Chris come back from an ACL injury is huge, he made a lot of big plays today," Holmes said.
Degenhardt was 18 of 34 for 259 yards and two touchdowns. He was sacked three times.
Onyemem, who joined New Haven from Bryant, was one of the transfers to make an immediate impact. Damon Burton, an Albany transfer, had six tackles and a sack while Mazon Walker (Huber Heights, Ohio/Anthony Wayne), another transfer out of Albany added two tackles while the other sack was recorded by Trajan Anderson (Fredericksburg, Va./Massaponax), who comes to New Haven after a run at Villanova. Former Bryant defensive back Javis Hanks (Newark. N.J./Malcolm X. Shabazz) added two tackles for the Chargers.
"These guys have definitely welcomed me in, they believe in me,"
Onyemem said. "The camaraderie is very important and that is only going to build, these guys trust me and that is very important for my team going forward. A team with a lot of transfers, you have to build that camaraderie especially early on."
Transfers Matthew Prudhomme (Orlando, Fla./Bishop Moore Catholic) (Furman), John Thomas (Baltimore, Md./Dunbar) (Clarion) and Xavier Bryson (Mechanicsville, Va./Hanover / Fork Union Military Acad.) (Wagner) were key figures in New Haven's rebuilt offensive line.
New Haven returns home to face rival Southern Connecticut in the Sept.
10 home opener. New Haven has won the last 11 games in the series with the Owls.
