Brown Rallies to Beat Holy Cross 20-13

Saturday, October 08, 2011

Scott Cordischi, GoLocalProv Sports Editor

The Brown Bears returned to action Saturday afternoon, one week after their convincing 35-21 win over intra state rival URI under the lights at Brown Stadium. Hosting a Holy Cross team that had defeated Harvard and took nationally ranked UNH down to the wire in Durham, the Bears knew they would have their hands full. Thanks to a bend but don’t break and play-making defense, the Bears were able to defeat the Crusaders 20-13.

Holy Cross led 3-0 early in the second and then 6-3 late in the first half before the Bears took their first lead of the contest when senior QB Kyle Newhall-Caballero (25-39 for 229 yards, 2 TD 0 INT)found Telef Lundevall ( 9 rec. 90 yds. 1 TD)in the end zone from 9-yards out for a touchdown. That gave the Bears a 10-6 lead at the half.

Holy Cross regained the lead in the third quarter when Ryan Taggart hit Gerald Mistretta with a 9-yard pass to make it 13-10 Crusaders. Later in the third, Holy Cross punter Corey Page inadvertently touched his knee to the ground at his own 4-yard line while fielding a low snap. It looked as if the Bears would be able to regain the lead from there with first and goal from the 4.

But the Holy Cross defense managed to hold the Bears to a short field goal attempt which sophomore kicker Alexander Norocea missed. The snap was a bit high but holder Alexander Phelan did a nice job of putting it down for Norocea. The problem was that Norocea was too close to Phelan at the time and missed the kick wide to the right.

With Holy Cross hanging on to that 3-point lead in the 4th, they tried a fake punt on the Bears on 4th and short from near midfield. Brown didn’t bite on the fake and stuffed the Crusaders taking over on their side of the 50-yard line.

A few plays later, Norocea made good on a field goal attempt of 34-yards knotting the game at 13-13.

Midway through the 4th, Holy Cross executed a perfect punt pinning the Bears at their own 1-yard line. But Newhall-Caballero and the Brown offense rose to the challenge. They marched an NCAA record-tying 99-yards down the field on 11 plays and scored the go ahead touchdown on a great scramble by the Brown quarterback who found Jonah Fay ( 3 rec. 38 yds. 1 TD)in the endzone from 18-yards out for the 20-13 lead with just over 3 minutes to go.

Holy Cross had a chance to mount a game-tying drive with 2 minutes to go in the game but the Crusaders were thwarted by the Brown defense as they had been for most of the day. Senior safety Stephen Peyton intercepted Taggart and fell to the ground at the Holy Cross 21 to seal the victory.

For the game, the Holy Cross offense racked up 373 yards of total offense against the Brown defense. But whenever the Bears D needed to make a stop of a big play it did. Brown finished with 324 yards of total offense in what wasn’t their most explosive performance of the season. But they came up big with the game on the line in the 4th with that 99-yard scoring drive.

With the win, Brown improves to (3-1) on the season. The Bears were a perfect (3-0) in nonconference games this season beating three good teams in Stony Brook, Rhode Island and Holy Cross.

Brown will now return to Ivy League play for the remainder of the season starting next Saturday at Brown Stadium against the Princeton Tigers at 12:30pm.