Merrimack Holds Off New Hampshire 24-17 With Fourth-Down Stop in Final Minute

New Hampshire had the ball, the momentum and 2:19 to go 89 yards. The Wildcats got 71 of them. On a sunny Family Weekend afternoon in North Andover, the last 18 yards were the ones Merrimack would not give up.

Merrimack beat New Hampshire 24-17 at Duane Stadium on Oct. 24, as sophomore quarterback AJ Hairston accounted for three touchdowns and the Warriors' defense stopped UNH on downs at the Merrimack 18 with 31 seconds left. Senior running back Matthias Latham ran for 105 yards, and the Warriors held the Wildcats to 7 rushing yards for the entire afternoon.

Merrimack improved to 3-5 and snapped a two-game skid. New Hampshire fell to 2-7. It was a non-conference game for the Wildcats, who are 1-4 in the CAA, and it gave Merrimack its second win of the season over a CAA opponent.

UNH lands the first punches

The visitors started like a team that had something to prove. New Hampshire put 10 points on the board in the first quarter and led 10-0.

It did not last. Merrimack's offense found its footing in the second quarter, and the Warriors put up 10 points of their own before the break: a touchdown and a field goal. The touchdown came from Hairston. The field goal came from an unlikely source.

The punter who kicked

Merrimack punter Mikey Ryan took over kicking duties on Saturday, and Ryan delivered a field goal that the Warriors badly needed.

"Mikey Ryan really stepped up for us today," head coach Mike Gennetti said. "I needed to make a decision when it came down to that moment, and it paid off."

That is not a small thing. A team that changes kickers midstream is usually a team with a problem. Merrimack turned that problem into points, and in a game that was tied twice, every point counted.

At halftime it was 10-10, and the game had completely changed shape.

A third quarter that went both ways

The teams traded touchdowns in the third quarter. Merrimack's scoring ran to 17 straight points after the early 10-0 hole, according to the Warriors. Hairston had a hand in both of the Warriors' middle-quarter touchdowns: a 40-yard scoring pass to running back Demarcus McElroy and a 3-yard touchdown run. New Hampshire answered with a touchdown of its own, and after three quarters the game was tied at 17.

That is where the New Hampshire passing game deserves real credit. Ryan Ricketti, a receiver from Rocky River, Ohio, was the best player on the field for the Wildcats all afternoon. Ricketti caught 11 passes for 155 yards, both career highs, and on a day when New Hampshire could not run the ball at all, Ricketti was the offense.

The turning point

The deciding drive started with the game tied and the fourth quarter ticking. Hairston rolled out to the right, found an open running lane and took it in for a 7-yard touchdown with 7:53 remaining. Merrimack 24, New Hampshire 17.

New Hampshire's recap called it a 7-yard run in one place and an 8-yard run in another. Either way, it was the last score of the game.

Then the Warriors tried to put it away. Merrimack took over at its own 30 with 7:04 to go and ground the clock down to 2:21 before facing fourth-and-6 at the UNH 32. Merrimack took a timeout, and the Warriors lined up to try to draw New Hampshire offside. The Wildcats did not bite. Merrimack took the delay of game penalty and punted.

Two minutes, one last chance

New Hampshire took over at its own 11 with 2:19 on the clock, and for most of the next two minutes the Wildcats did everything right.

Kelly caught an 8-yard pass to move the chains to the UNH 22. Ricketti grabbed a 14-yarder for another first down at the UNH 36. On third-and-3 with 1:18 left, Thomason turned a quick out into a 10-yard gain to the Merrimack 47. A defensive pass interference penalty moved the ball to the Merrimack 23, and a 5-yard catch by Kelly got it to the 18. New Hampshire burned its last timeout with 45 seconds left.

On third-and-5, quarterback Tommy McLeish threw to the front-left corner of the end zone for Perez, and a Merrimack defender broke it up. On fourth down, McLeish went to the front-right pylon, and the throw carried Fillion out of bounds. Turnover on downs, 31 seconds left, ballgame.

"We did enough defensively," Gennetti said. "I was really pleased with how we played throughout the game."

AJ Hairston and Matthias Latham

Hairston threw for 205 yards and the touchdown to McElroy and ran for 37 yards and two more scores. For a sophomore, it was the kind of steady, all-around afternoon that wins close games.

"The coaching staff has put us all in a great position to succeed," Hairston said. "For me, it's about trusting the process."

Latham did the dirty work. The senior carried 21 times for 105 yards, Latham's third 100-yard game of the season. A month earlier, Latham had piled up more than 200 yards of total offense in a 17-10 Homecoming win over New Haven, and Merrimack's offense is at its best when the run game sets the tone like this. The Warriors finished with 394 total yards.

The Merrimack defense

The number that jumps off the page is 7. That is how many rushing yards New Hampshire managed all day, which made the Wildcats one-dimensional from start to finish. Almost everything UNH gained had to come through the air, and Merrimack knew it.

Dwayne Green Jr. and Rajahn Cooper each recorded a sack. Kamden Wyatt led the Warriors with five tackles.

The stats that matter

Start with the run game, because that is where this game was decided. New Hampshire could not run at all. When one team has a 100-yard rusher and the other finishes with 7 rushing yards, the team with the rusher usually wins, even when the other side has a receiver posting 155 yards.

The other number is 18. That is the yard line where New Hampshire's last drive ended. The Wildcats covered 71 yards in about two minutes and needed only 18 more. The full numbers are in the official box score (opens in a new tab).

What it means

For Merrimack, this one mattered after back-to-back road losses. The Warriors fell 41-24 at Yale after a fast start and then lost 27-21 at Dartmouth when a late drive came up short. Holding on at home on Family Weekend was the right way to head into the final month. Next on the schedule was a Halloween home game against Wagner at Duane Stadium, followed by an FBS road trip to Wake Forest on Nov. 7, a visit to Monmouth on Nov. 14 and a home finale against Sacred Heart on Nov. 21. Merrimack's recap is here (opens in a new tab).

For New Hampshire, the season keeps slipping away by a few yards at a time. The Wildcats lost 30-27 in overtime at North Carolina A&T on Oct. 10 and then fell 42-21 to Monmouth before this one. At 2-7, the focus now is on finishing strong in the CAA. UNH has no game on Halloween, then hosts Rhode Island on Nov. 7 and Stony Brook on Nov. 14 before closing at Maine on Nov. 21. New Hampshire's recap is here (opens in a new tab).

The last word

"I thought our guys played really hard for as long as it took," Gennetti said. "We knew it was going to be a 60-minute effort-type game."

It was exactly that. New Hampshire got an 11-catch day from Ricketti and a final drive that came within one throw of tying the game. Merrimack got a punter who made a field goal, a quarterback who made the go-ahead run and a defense that made the last stop. In a game this close, that was enough.

Sources: Merrimack Athletics recap and schedule, New Hampshire Athletics recap and line score, and the ESPN schedule. More college football coverage on Undrafted.

Photos: Katie Beaudrot / UNH Athletics.