BIDDEFORD — For a moment, the University of New England football team had Western New England facing a deficit.
UNE took a lead 54 seconds into the second quarter when Brian Peters connected with Ryan Gaboury for a 15-yard touchdown. But the Golden Bears answered with 27 straight points on their way to a 50-38 win Saturday at Blue Storm Stadium.
“We had guys all over the place making plays,” said Western New England Coach Jason Lebeau. “I think that was really a big difference, and we didn’t turn the ball over so we were able to continuously get first downs off some explosive plays.”
Peters’ touchdown pass put UNE (2-2) ahead 10-7 with 14:06 left in the half, but Western New England responded with a nine-play, 72-yard drive capped by a five-yard touchdown run from EJ Dudley to go ahead for good with 10:29 left. Western New England finished with 543 yards of offense. Running back Jamyre Soberanis rushed for 169 yards and four total touchdowns.
Western New England also made some plays defensively and forced UNE into four turnovers.
“Unfortunately a couple bad mistakes on our part,” said Nor’easters running back Devon Charles. “We need to clean up those in practice, and we need to go back to the drawing board and prepare next week for Curry.”
Western New England (3-1) took a 27-10 lead into halftime on touchdown passes from Brendan Smith to Adam Razza and Soberanis.
Every time UNE appeared to steal momentum, Western New England had an answer. Peters found Cobey Johnson from 10 yards for his second touchdown pass of the game to make it 34-17 with 8:38 left in the third.
The Golden Bears responded with 10 straight points – a 22-yard field goal from Kieran Lombard and a Soberanis touchdown – to take their biggest lead of the game, 44-17 with 1:34 remaining in the period.
Peters finished with four touchdowns on 31 of 41 passes for 292 yards, but threw two interceptions. Coach Mike Lichten said the Nor’easters need to clean up on the turnovers on offense.
“We can’t give the ball away and we didn’t take it away (defensively),” Lichten said. “Those are two of the core things we want to do well.”
The result was a far cry from the Golden Bears’ 70-13 win over the Nor’easters last October. Lebeau thought UNE played hard and sees a bright future for the Nor’easters’ program.
“Their coaching staff is phenomenal,” Lebeau said. “They do a really good job, and I told (Lichten) that I was really, really impressed by how much development they’ve had in one year … Fundamentally I think they were better than us today.”
Despite coming in as the underdog against the two-time Commonwealth Coast Conference champion, Charles thought confidence inside the UNE locker room was “sky-high.” He hopes the players can continue to keep that same focus going forward.
“It’s a little sour,” Charles said. “We wanted to take down the defending champs … We knew from the jump that we could win and that’s what gave us so much confidence. It stings a little bit, but it’s just going to make us that much more mad and so much more hungry to show the world what we’re capable of.”
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