Football’s offense is too much for Curry College
Men’s football team snapped 16-game losing streak to Curry with a 49-20 win on the road
Playing on the road for the first time this season the MIT football team churned out 462 yards of offense, 311 of it on the ground, as the Engineers rolled past Curry College, 49-20, in a New England Football Conference (NEFC) game on Friday, October 3. The win keeps MIT undefeated at 4-0 and broke a 16-game losing streak to the Colonels dating back to 1997.
MIT (4-0, 2-0 NEFC) took control of the contest early, scoring three times in a span of just over four minutes covering the end if the first quarter and the beginning of the second. On its second drive of the night the Engineers faced a 2nd and 17 on its own 16 before Justin R. Wallace ’15 erased that by running 75 yards to the Curry nine-yard line. On the next play Bradford L. Goldsberry ’15 ran it in for the first score of the night.
After holding the Colonels to a three and out, MIT got a pair of big pass plays from Peter J. Williams ’16, one for 38 yards to Seve A. Esparrago ’16 and the second for 35 yards and a score to Jared T. Hanson ’18 to complete the short, four-play drive. On Curry’s first play of its next drive Robert V. DiSanto ’18 picked off Spencer Tyler’s pass attempt at the Curry 25. Six plays later Wallace was in the end zone from three yards out to give the Engineers a 21-0 lead just eight seconds into the second quarter.
Curry (0-5 0-2 NEFC) came back with a 12-play, 90-yard scoring drive that was capped off by a 29-yard scoring pass from Tyler to Skubie Mageza. MIT quickly answered, going 59 yards in seven plays. Williams broke off his longest run of the season, scampering 37 yards for the score with 5:12 left in the half to give the Engineers a 28-7 advantage that lasted until the half.
Curry started the second half with a 13-play, 61-yard drive that brought the Colonels back within couple of scores when Tyler plunged in from the one with 10:37 on the clock. The extra point was missed, however, leaving MIT up by 15 at 28-13.
That would be as close as Curry would get, however, as a 38-yard run by Wallace on the next MIT drive set up a nine-yard Williams to Goldsberry scoring play just 1:23 after the Colonels scored. Later in the quarter Tyler was intercepted again, this time by Mitchell P. Turley ’18 who returned it 86 yards for a score to make it 42-13 with 5:37 left in the third.
The two teams traded scores in the fourth quarter to close out the scoring. With 5:34 left Esparrago found the end zone on a three-yard run for MIT, while Curry added a score with just seven seconds left when Trae Weathers broke away for a 39-yard scoring run.
Wallace rushed for over 100 yards for the fourth time this season with his 196-yard effort. With the ground game going and MIT having five scoring drives that lasted less than three minutes, Williams only attempted 15 passes, completing nine of them for 151 yards and two scores along with an interception. It was enough, however, to allow the senior to pass Rick Mancusco ’09 as MIT’s all-time leader in passing yards with 4,496, surpassing Mancusco’s total of 4,456.
Weathers led Curry with 101 yards rushing; with Tyler completing 18 of 35 passes for 139 yards and one score while being picked off twice. Dave Digiorgi led all receivers for the Colonels with eight catches.
MIT finished with 462 yards of offense to Curry’s 342. Kodiak D. Brush ’17 led MIT with nine tackles, while Parrish Rogers-Reed led all defenders for Curry with 13 tackles, three of which were for a loss of a total of 11 yards.
MIT will be off next week, not playing again until Oct. 17 when the Engineers will play at Nichols College at Noon. Curry will be in action next week, traveling to Coast Guard for a 1:30 p.m. matchup on Oct. 11.