Character is not born, it’s built. The Hoya football team went winless in the Patriot League last year, laying the foundation for the type of character they’ve been searching for. On Saturday the team reaped the benefits of last year’s growing pains with their first Patriot League win in over a year. But now it’s a new year and a new team.
Saturday night at Bucknell, the year’s first test proved to be an intimidating one. However, perseverance was the enduring feature for the Blue and Grey, and especially for sophomore kicker Eric Bjonerud. Coming back from a 16-0 deficit, the Hoyas scored 19 unanswered points in an awe-inspiring comeback that ended with a 33-yard Bjonerud boot in overtime.
“To win on the road, in a league game opener, it’s huge,” said Coach Bob Benson. “We didn’t play extremely well at times, but we played very tough and very hard and our kids stuck through it. It was a great win.”
Having played a first half full of promising drives, the Hoyas’ series of equally terrible mistakes killed each one. Penalties, turnovers, and dropped balls did the Hoyas in on the offensive side of the ball. “We knew we deserved to be down, it was nothing earth-shattering,” Benson said. “We made mistakes, but if we could correct them, we knew we could get back in the game, and we did.”
The special teams unit, especially the eventual hero, would join the offense as scapegoats for the team’s dire first half. The kicker-punter Bjonerud fumbled a snap and missed two field goals before his eventual game-tying and game-winning kicks. These mistakes would be enough to kill all confidence in most players but not Bjonerud. “I had a rough half,” he said. “I dropped a punt, I kicked a ball to the wrong side of the field on a kickoff. Pretty much everything I could have done wrong, I did wrong.”
However, Bjonerud was undaunted and could be characterized more by the ice in his veins than by the shake in his knees. His first career game-winning kick also sealed his first career Patriot League Special Teams Player of Week award.
Though confident, Bjonerud knew the kick was anything but a sure thing. Junior holder Keith Allen saved a bad snap, and possibly the game, when he got the ball up on end so that it could be deposited between the uprights.
“Going into that last kick I saw my buddy who had a bloody chin and another who hurt his eye,” Bjonerud said. “I knew there’s no way I could have missed that.”
Though it was Bjonerud’s kicks that eventually beat the Bison, it was the team’s play as a whole that put him in a position to redeem himself and make the team 1-0 in conference play.
As it turns out, Bjonerud’s kick was not the only miraculous play for the Hoyas at Christy Mathewson Memorial Stadium that night. The offense that struggled to have a good drive from start to finish in the first half seemed to have the football gods on their side in the second half when the unusual occurred.
Quarterback Nick Cangelosi (9-20, 168 yards, 2 TD, 2 INT) making his first start for the Hoyas found second-year receiver Kyle Van Fleet (4 rec., 74 yards, 1 TD) up the sideline for a 20-yard completion. The ball was popped loose by a Bucknell defender, sending the pigskin in flight when speedy first year receiver Kenny Mitchell found himself in the right place at the right time. Pulling his best Franco Harris, and making his own “immaculate reception,” Mitchell raced 50 yards into the end zone for the Hoyas’ first score of the year.
After a fumble caused by the Hoyas’ senior defensive signal-caller and middle-linebacker Mehdi Hassan, the offense found themselves right back on the field. Van Fleet got his hands on another Cangelosi pass, this time holding it tight all the way into the end zone for a 41-yard touchdown.
In the span of a single minute, and with the help of a few nice bounces, the Hoyas found themselves right back in the game, 16-13.
Georgetown’s stifling defense, led by senior defensive end Michael Ononibaku and junior Alex Buzbee, pressured the Bison’s sophomore quarterback Terrence Wilson for the entire second half. Their option attack had no room to work, forcing them to fumble twice in key situations. Cangelosi took advantage of the opponents’ mishaps with a long option run to set up Bjonerud’s game-tying kick, completing the comeback.
The momentum for the Hoyas peaked when the defense blocked a potential game-winning kick by Bucknell kicker Ryan Korn who had been iced after the Hoyas took three consecutive time-outs.
Georgetown looks to carry this early momentum into Worcester, Mass., on Saturday when they face the Crusaders of Holy Cross during their homecoming weekend.
“They have an excellent offense; they might have the best offense in the league,” said Benson. “We haven’t beaten them in 6 years. To go 2-0 in the league would be huge heading into October. It would be a great opportunity for our program.”
