Bears end season with win

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ORONO – Rapper M.C. Hammer has a song out titled “Too Legit to Quit.”

Saturday, in its season finale and with 12 seniors making their final appearance, the University of Maine football team took the tune to heart and proceeded to hammer overmatched Towson State 49-34 in front of 3,246 die-hards at chilly Alumni Field.

While no one in attendance would ever confuse the Tigers from Towson, Md., (1-9) with even a lower echelon Yankee Conference team, the Black Bears played impressively and were able to blow off a lot of pent-up frustration while finishing with a 3-8 record, the same mark as last year.

“I’m just glad we could go out winners and have a nice last weekend and forget some of the bad things that happened this year,” said UM senior quarterback Jeff DelRosso, who completed a career high 21 of 32 passes for 332 yards and three touchdowns to spearhead Maine’s best offensive game of the season in his first and last start of the year.

The Bears racked up 525 total yards and scored the most points since a 56-0 win over Lock Haven in 1989.

Other statistics of note: Senior tailback Carl Smith muscled for 78 yards on 17 carries to crack the 4,000-yard mark for his career. Smith finished his four seasons with a school-record 4,025 yards and his two-yard TD burst in the second quarter gave him 34 for his career, also a school record. Only BU’s Paul Lewis (4,436) finished with more yards in Yankee Conference history and only three backwith more yards in Yankee Conference history and only three backs in conference history scored more rushing TDs than the speedster from Riverhead, N.Y. Working against true freshman quarterback Dan Crowley amid Towson’s run-and-shoot offense on a cold, windy day, the much-maligned UM secondary intercepted a school-record seven passes. Cornerbacks Larry Jones and Bill Curry and strong safety Lance Boston had two picks each, while free safety Greg Mikell added one. Boston returned his first interception 42 yards for the TD that gave Maine a 7-0 lead. Curry returned his first pick 56 yards for the score that made it 19-0 Bears.

Any competitive suspense ended with 6:57 left in the second quarter with Smith’s two-yard hurdle around right end to cap an eight-play, 71-yard drive gave Maine a 32-0 lead. Smith went over 4,000 yards on a 15-yard run over right tackle with 2:21 left in the third period.

“It’s good to get a win on our last home game,” said Smith. “You always remember your last game.”

Second-year Maine coach Kirk Ferentz echoed Smith’s sentiment.

“It was a special day in our minds for our seniors,” said Ferentz. “It’s obviously been a disappointing season for all of us. The only thing we could do was dedicate our performance to the seniors. It was great they can go out on a winning note.”

From Towson’s perspective, the day wasn’t a total loss. Despite falling behind 32-0 in the first 23 minutes, the Tigers still amassed 404 yards and rang up 34 points. Crowley completed 25 of 53 throws for 281 yards and three TDs. And the Tigers actually closed within two TDs (42-26) with 6:58 left in the game on a one-yard TD run by tailback Brian McCarty.

But a 34-yard kickoff return by Maine’s Smith set up a 30-yard scoring strike from DelRosso to flanker Frizell Davis on a fly down the right sideline to end any doubt.

“We gave up a lot of cheap points today,” is how Towson Coach Phil Albert saw it. “They intercepted balls and walked in for touchdowns. We were down 31-0 (sic) and they hadn’t done a lot. We hurt ourselves today. Danny threw some at them, they made the interceptions, and ran them in.”

Black Bears 49, Tigers 34

Towson State 0 7 0 27 -34

Maine 19 20 3 7 -49

M – Boston 42 interception return (Tobin kick)

M – Campbell 4 pass from DelRosso (kick blocked)

M – Curry 56 interception return (kick failed)

M – Willey 31 run (pass failed)

M – Smith 2 run (Tobin kick)

T – McCarty 21 run (Dunn kick)

M – Szydlowski 13 pass from DelRosso (Tobin kick)

M – Tobin 37 FG

T – Howard 22 pass from Crowley (Dunn kick)

T – Orlando 35 pass from Crowley (pass failed)

T – McCarty 1 run (pass failed)

M – Davis 30 pass from DelRosso (Tobin kick)

T – Hill 32 pass from Crowley (Crowley pass to Jackson)

Maine Towson State First downs 27 24 Rushing: att. – yards 54-193 18-123 Passing: att. – comp. 32-21 53-25 Yards passing 332 281 Total yards 525 404 Intercepted by 7 1 Punts – average 4-26.0 3-32.7 Fumbles – lost 1-1 2-1 Penalties – yards 14-101 4-28

INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS

RUSHING – Maine: Capriotti 20-89, Smith 17-78, Willey 5-44, Curran 3-15, Knight 1-1, DelRosso 5-(minus-22), Marsilio 2-(minus-5), Szydlowski 1-(minus-7); Towson State: O’Neill 11-75, McCarty 3-24, Jackson 2-17, Crowley 2-7

PASSING – Maine: DelRosso 21-32-1-332; Towson State: Crowley 25-53-7-281

RECEIVING – Maine: Davis 6-108, Szydlowski 5-69, Smith 2-38, Campbell 2-10, Curran 2-5, Squires 1-44, Willey 1-23, Capriotti 1-12, Shaw 1-23; Towson State: Hill 6-53, Orlando 5-88, Howard 5-40, Weeks 5-83, McCarty 1-8, Patterson 1-6, Mazur 1-5, Jackson 1-(minus-2)