DURHAM, N.H. — After the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga battled the nation's top-ranked team toe-to-toe for the better part of four quarters, two consecutive touchdowns by New Hampshire led to a 35-30 victory in the FCS quarterfinal Friday night.
With a national audience watching on ESPN2, and 6,380 packing frigid Cowell Stadium, the Mocs (10-4) led for much of the first half and regained a short-lived two-point lead to open the fourth quarter. But New Hampshire (12-1) answered with a long kickoff return to the UTC 36 and needed just four plays to find the end zone and reclaim the lead for good.
The Wildcats added another TD minutes later and extended their home winning streak to 13 games in advancing to the semifinals for a second straight year. UNH will await the winner of today's quarterfinal between fourth seed Eastern Washington and Illinois State.
The Wildcats' only loss this season was to FBS foe Toledo to open the season.
The lead swung back and forth in the second half Friday night, including twice in the first two minutes of the fourth quarter as both teams answered scoring drives by the other.
After Henrique Ribeiro's 27-yard field goal staked UTC to a two-point lead to begin the final period, New Hampshire countered with a kickoff return to the Mocs' 36. It took just five plays before Nico Steriti's 6-yard scoring run gave the Wildcats a 28-24 lead. On the play before that score, UTC appeared to stop the drive with an interception, but the receiver was ruled to have stepped out of bounds and returned before touching the ball.
After UTC opted to punt on fourth-and-1 from its 30, the next snap for UNH was a 61-yard TD pass from Sean Goldrich to R.J. Harris. On that play, the Wildcats ran a reverse with the ball flipped back to Goldrich, who threw short and allowed Harris to outrun the defense down the home sideline for an 11-point lead with just over 11 minutes to go.
UTC followed with a solid drive, but it ended with an interception deep in Wildcats territory. It was only Jacob Huesman's third interception against an FCS opponent this year. Huesman added a late TD pass to Derrick Craine, but the Mocs failed on the two-point try and then did not recover an onside kick.
At the half UTC had outgained UNH 346-155 in total yards and had held the ball for 21:26 of the first 30 minutes. But the Wildcats used special teams to take away momentum in the second half.
Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6293.
Tweets by @StephenHargis