UMass topples Maine Mistakes hurt Black Bears

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ORONO – The University of Maine woke up Sunday morning with what coach Jack Cosgrove called the “Montana Hangover.”

As was the case in their season-opening loss to Montana, the Black Bears made too many mistakes in Saturday night’s Atlantic 10 football clash against Massachusetts.

The 12th-ranked Minutemen forced three UMaine turnovers and popped a handful of big plays while holding on for a 24-16 victory over the 15th-ranked Bears at Alfond Stadium.

A crowd of 7,316 watched as the Bears (2-2, 1-1 A-10) controlled play much of the night but were victimized by penalties, turnovers and untimely breakdowns in execution.

“It came down to we made the critical mistakes on offense that they capitalized on, creating field position changes and points for them,” Cosgrove said. “We’ve just really got to eliminate these major mistakes that we’re making on the offensive side of the ball.”

UMaine ran 77 plays to 54 for UMass, emerged with a 23-14 edge in first downs, outgained the Minutemen 340-297 and earned a 12-minute advantage in time of possession – but had only 14 points to show for it.

“We just have to learn as an offense that we can’t keep [making mistakes] because in the conference we’re in, teams are too good for that and you’re going to lose games,” said tailback Marcus Williams, who was held to 67 yards on 17 carries. “It’s just frustrating to say, ‘we could have beat that team.'”

In spite of their frustration, the Bears kept fighting.

With UMass ahead 21-9, Manauris Arias forced a fumble and John Baumgartner recovered. On the next play, freshman quarterback Ron Whitcomb hit Christian Pereira on a 56-yard timing toss down the visitors’ sideline, making it 21-16 as the third quarter expired.

However, the Minutemen responded with a drive that culminated in Michael Torres’ 37-yard field goal, which pushed the lead to back to eight.

After stalling on a march at the UMass 30, the hosts got the ball back with 1:57 left and no timeouts. The Bears went 34 yards on six plays before Whitcomb was chased out of the pocket, threw downfield and was intercepted by Bobby Boyer.

“The only thing that stopped us from putting points on the board was us shooting ourselves in the foot by one person not doing their job,” said Whitcomb, who completed a career-best 20 of 35 passes for 230 yards with two TDs and two interceptions.

“Everybody on the field on the offense had one [mistake] which kept us from taking the offensive production to the next level and turning it into points,” he added.

Ryan Waller caught eight passes for 69 yards to pace UMaine’s receiving corps. Pereira had four catches for 86 yards and two TDs.

Linebacker Fred Lazo led the Bears’ defense with 10 tackles and strong safety Joe Olszewski of Alfred had eight.

UMass fell behind 2-0 when QB Jeff Krohn was stepped on and fell down in the end zone, but the Minutemen bounced back with 14 points in a span of 21/2 minutes early in the second quarter.

UMass took the lead for good when Howard slipped behind the defense and caught a 65-yard scoring pass from Krohn (15-for-27, 191 yds., 2 TDs) with 12:11 left in the first half.

Then, Steve Costello’s 19-yard punt return set up an 8-yard scoring toss from Krohn to Rich Demers that made it 14-2 at the 9:39 mark.

Shortly thereafter, Justin Knox recovered Costello’s muffed punt at the UMass 27. It set up a nifty 11-yard TD pass from Whitcomb to Pereira, cutting the deficit to 14-9.

UMaine appeared to seize the momentum later in the quarter when Pereira turned a leaping catch into a 57-yard TD play, but it was negated by a holding penalty. On the next play, Costello redeemed himself by returning a Williams fumble 36 yards for a score, making it 21-9 at halftime.

“I had to make a big play because I had two mishaps in the punt game,” Costello said. “I thought we got the momentum back and then from there on out we just keep going forward and don’t look back.”

UMaine never made up for the squandered opportunity.

“We rallied around it, the fact that we made a mistake as an offense,” Pereira said of the TD that got called back. “After that play, it was like, we can’t make any more mistakes.”

UMaine had one other fourth-quarter threat, moving to the UMass 30, but a key sack of Whitcomb by Mike Ziccardi forced the Bears to punt.

In the first quarter, the Bears also had an apparent interception by Arias negated by a roughing-the-passer penalty.

Late in the third, UMaine moved 52 yards to the UMass 13 but a third-down pass to the end zone by Whitcomb was picked off by Shannon James.

MINUTEMEN 24, BLACK BEARS 16

Massachusetts (2-1) 0 21 0 3 ? 24

Maine (2-2) 2 7 7 0 ? 16

Maine ? Safety, Krohn fell in end zone

Mass ? Howard 65 pass from Krohn (Torres kick)

Mass ? Demers 8 pass from Krohn (Torres kick)

Maine ? Pereira 11 pass from Whitcomb (Mellow kick)

Mass ? Costello 35 fumble return (Torres kick)

Maine ? Pereira 56 pass from Whitcomb (Mellow kick)

Mass ? Torres 37 field goal

UMass Maine

First downs 14 23

Rushing att.-yards 27-106 42-110

Passing comp.-att. 15-27 20-35

Passing yards 191 230

Total yards 297 340

Punts-avg. 7-38.7 10-37.3

Fumbles-lost 2-2 4-1

Intercepted by 2 0

Penalties-yards 7-65 4-55

Rushing

UMass: Baylark 24-105, Howard 1-3, Krohn 1-(-1), team 1-(-1); Maine: Williams 17-67, Momah 6-25, Ry. Waller 1-16, Owens 3-9, Team 2-(-2), Whitcomb 13-(-5)

Passing

UMass: Krohn 15-27-0-191; Maine: Whitcomb 20-35-2-230

Receiving

UMass: Howard 6-121, Baylark 3-15, Demers 2-21, Peebler 2-13, Opie 1-13, Young 1-8; Maine: Ry. Waller 8-69, Pereira 4-86, Ballantyne 4-40, Zyskowski 1-15, Fusco 1-11, McMahan 1-6, Williams 1-3

A?7,316