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Staten Island, NY - Junior
Dominique Williams (Bridgeton, NJ / Bridgeton / Milford Academy) ran for a season-high 177 yards to go along with a pair of touchdowns, while senior
Nick Doscher (Staten Island, NY / Moore Catholic) threw three touchdowns, including two over the final 7:09, in lifting Wagner to a scintillating, come-from-behind, 31-30 victory over Holy Cross at Hameline Field.
With their seventh-straight win, the Seahawks improve to 7-3 on the year, while the Crusaders fall to 1-9 with their fifth loss of the year by a touchdown or less.
The Green & White will now square off with Duquesne in next Saturday's Senior Day finale at 12:00 pm, in a game that will decide the Northeast Conference (NEC) Championship and the league's Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) automatic bid. Both Wagner and Albany are tied at 6-1 in the league, after the Great Danes defeated the Dukes by a 38-31 score in Pittsburgh earlier this afternoon. If Wagner bests Duquesne, it will earn the conference's automatic bid to the upcoming NCAA Division I Football Championship. For Albany to clinch the bid, it would need to beat Central Connecticut at home and have the Dukes defeat the Seahawks.
In a shoot-it-out affair, the teams combined to rack up a total of 850 yards, including 453 yards on the ground, and punt the ball just three times. Williams, who has hit the 100-yard mark on the ground seven times this year, carried the ball 23 times for his 177 yards in cracking the 1,000-yard mark for the second-straight season, and now has 1,064 to go along with a team-best 11 total touchdowns. Doscher collected a season-best 68 yards on 13 carries. The Staten Island native was 17-for-31 in the air for 140 yards and three touchdowns. Doscher also did not throw an interception for the ninth-straight game, and has an impressive 11-to-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio on the year.
Despite yielding 30 points for the second time this year, the Wagner defense made a pair of huge stops in the red zone after allowing Holy Cross to score 17-straight points out of intermission in building up a 27-14 lead. The damage, however, could have been a lot worse if not for a stout Seahawk defense. After the Green & White fumbled the ball in the third quarter at its own 10 yard line, the defense did not allow the Crusaders to advance the ball as the Patriot League representative had to settle for three points, while keeping it a two-score game at 27-14. Then, following a
David Lopez (Jr., Plantation, FL / American Heritage) field goal, the Green & White kept Holy Cross out the end zone again, forcing the Crusaders into a 22-yard field goal.
However, the biggest defensive play occured on the final Holy Cross drive, when senior
Theodore Clohessy (Staten Island, NY / St. Joseph by the Sea) stripped the ball from Steven Elder, before sophomore
Jarrett Dieudonne (Fort Lauderdale, FL / Dillard / Purdue University) scooped the ball up and ran 66 yards to the Crusader 24-yard line. Following a 10-yard penalty, the Wagner offense picked up a pair of crucial fourth-down conversions, the last of which was a 14-yard strike to sophomore
Anthony Carrington (Toms River, NJ / Toms River North) on 4th-and-10 from the Crusader 18-yard line. Then on first-and-goal, Doscher found sophomore
Cody Morgan (Boston, MA / Boston College / Milford Academy / Syracuse University) for the game-tying touchdown in the middle of the end zone, before Lopez booted his fourth extra point to complete the fourth-quarter comeback and give the Seahawks a thrilling 31-30 win.
Holy Cross, which have now lost two-straight games by just one point, were led by Elder, who completed 16-of-25 for 234 yards and a score, while Eddie Houghton picked up 92 yards and a touchdown on 23 carries (4.0 ypc). Mike Fess paced all receivers with six catches for 101 yards, while Gerald Mistretta corralled five passes for 50 yards and a score.
In the first half, Wagner, which has won seven-straight games for the first time since the 1988 season, struck first on a nine-yard touchdown pass from Doscher to Carrington with 11:01 to play in the first quarter. Following a 20-yard John Macomber field goal, the Seahawks rattled off a 15-play, 88-yard touchdown drive that spanned 8:10 and was consummated with Williams' first touchdown of the afternoon, a five-yard run with 3:48 until the half. Down but not out, the Crusaders immediately responded with a 13-play, 75-yard scoring drive that took just 3:12, capped by a three-yard touchdown run from Eddie Houghton.
Williams also led the Green & White receivers with five catches for 47 yards and a score. Carrington snared just two catches, but they were arguably two of the most important of the game with the first accounting for Wagner's opening touchdown, while his fourth-quarter, fourth-down catch kept the Seahawks' rally going in the game's final minute.
Holy Cross converted 10-of-15 on third down, while Wagner made good on 7-of-14 and was a perfect 3-for-3 on fourth down.
Clohessy's forced fumble highlighted a team-best matching nine tackles with senior #C.O. Prime# (Laval, Quebec / The Kent School (CT)) matching his classmate with nine stops. Freshman
Daevonte Barnett (Riviera Beach, FL / W.T Dwyer) had the lone Green & White sack of the game, 1.5 tackles for loss and a forced fumble. Holy Cross' Erik Wachter led all tacklers with 20 stops, including a forced fumble and recovery.
The Wagner offensive line did not allow a sack for the second-straight game.
For those wishing to see a replay of the game, please go to
www.NECFrontRow.com.
Follow Wagner Athletics on Twitter (@wagnerathletics) for all the latest news and updates on the athletic department.
Photography by Dave Saffran
