For a group of seniors that seemed like they couldn’t catch a break all season, they sure picked a good time to reverse their fortune.
For the second straight year, Georgetown’s football team rallied in the final minutes to secure a victory on Homecoming. After the team trailed Marist the entire game, juniors Matt Bassuaner (17-22, 141 yards, 3 TDs) and Erik Carter hooked up on a third-down screen pass with less than two minutes to go for the 24-21. As Carter lunged head first over the goal line, he vaulted the Hoyas to the lead and a homecoming hullabaloo.
“We wanted to bring a win to the seniors on their last game here,” Carter said. “They’ve been working so hard for four years and haven’t had a lot of success, so we had to have that.”
The pass went for nine yards but led to a victory for a team that has traveled a much longer road over the course of the season. After their 1-7 start, the seniors’ final season was starting to seem like a formality. But Homecoming always looms at the end of the season, and the team understood the task at hand. They haven’t lost a homecoming game in the entire time the class of ’07 has been on the Hilltop.
Senior corner back Derek Franks sealed the win with a fourth quarter interception as Marist had just over a minute to complete its own comeback. Franks, who had been picked on all game by Marist quarterback Stephen McGrath, was emotional after his final home game ensuring his team’s first win in six tries.
“It feels great, especially senior year knowing that it’s my last game here,” Franks said. “There were a lot of people here. My family was here, and it was great to be here with the guys for this win. Catching the ball and sealing the deal, you can’t ask for more than that.”
During the first half, the chances of the Hoyas continuing their homecoming win streak seemed to be floating away like the blue and gray balloons that lined The Yard. But as a former midshipman, Head Coach Kevin Kelly offered some sailor-esque words of encouragement that got the Hoyas to turn it around.
“I told them that we needed to get our butts in gear,” Kelly said. “We weren’t moving the football, and we weren’t stopping them. I felt we were a better football team than what we showed. We had to step our game up and win it for the seniors.”
“The coaches had us pretty jacked up, and we realized what we were playing for,” Bassuaner said. “This is a really tight team and the seniors, everyone wanted to win it for them. They really led the way.”
The senior-laden offensive line, led by senior co-captain Liam Grubb, created gaping holes for freshman up-and-coming running back Charlie Houghton. The youngster amassed 114 all-purpose yards and added a touchdown while playing for his elders. His work earned him Patriot League Rookie of the Week honors for the second straight week.
The holes opened up by the line allowed Georgetown to be a multi-dimensional offense. With nine minutes left, runs by Houghton, Bassuaner and Carter helped the Blue and Gray march down inside the Red Fox red zone. It was here that the Hoyas showed the 2,000-plus fans in attendance that they can come through late in games. A rare fourth-down conversion by Carter gave Georgetown four shots at the endzone, and their first lead of Homecoming 2006. After being sacked on second down, Bassuaner remained poised with the sounds of raucous Hoya fans filling his helmet, as he found Carter for the game-winner.
“Once that momentum gets going and the crowd is into it, it’s like the 12th man,” Bassuaner said. “Momentum is big for us, and I think the crowd really played a big part of that today.”
Although the crowd was into it at the end, it seemed as though the air had been let out of the stadium late in the third quarter when Bassuaner fumbled away a snap on the Marist goal line. Kelly’s bunch did not panic, though, and they realized an important lesson on a day when their fourth-year players wanted to be singing the fight song as time expired and their fans lingered.
“It’s a credit to the guys that they didn’t tank at that point,” Coach Kelly said, encouraged. “They could’ve said, ‘Here we go again,’ but to me that’s a milestone we overcame today. We didn’t panic, and we knew we could win a football game with some adversity.”
The Hoyas responded to that adversity by rattling off 14 unanswered points and getting big defensive stops from the seniors, including co-captain Alex Buzbee, who recorded a punt-inducing fourth quarter sack.
“I’m happy for those seniors, all 14 of them,” the rookie head coach said. “They all bleed blue and gray. This game was for the seniors, and I told them that they are the foundation for this program. This is my first head coaching position. This is the first class, and I’ll never forget any of them because of that. They’re special in my mind.”
Georgetown will travel to Easton, Pa. this weekend to take on Lafayette. Kick off will be at 1 p.m.
