The Morgan State Bears (1-3) fell to the Albany Great Danes (2-2), losing 23-17 in double overtime on a rainy and cold evening on Saturday, losing their second home game of the season.
In overtime, the Bears offense took advantage of the first possession and scored a touchdown.
The Bears’ defense could not prevent the Danes from scoring, however. They allowed the Great Danes to score back-to-back touchdowns on their next two drives.
The Great Danes’ defense stood its ground, allowing the Bears to gain only one yard before forcing quarterback Dominique Anthony to throw three straight incomplete passes to end the game.
Anthony completed 18 of 39 pass attempts, with 147 yards passing, one touchdown and zero interceptions.
With just under a minute left in the fourth quarter and the Bears down 10-7, the Great Danes’ running back Faysal Aden fumbled the ball after Bears defensive lineman Elijah Williams tackled him at the Great Dane’s 36-yard line.
Bears linebacker Arturo Mattocks recovered the ball and ran it back to the Great Danes 28-yard line to put the Bears in good field position. After a four-yard gain, Anthony threw a deep pass to wide receiver Treveyon Pratt, leaving the Bears at the Great Danes’ one-yard line.
The Bears failed to make it to the end zone on two quarterback sneaks, before getting an illegal substitution penalty to push them back five more yards. The Bears kicked a field goal to tie it at 10-10.
“We need to get the ball in,” Damon Wilson, Bears head football coach said. “We tried to run a quarterback sneak a couple of times. And we knew [in the] worst case scenario we’d have to kick a field goal to tie it up to go into overtime.”
The Bears’ offense struggled to score in the second half, unable to reach the end zone before scoring a field goal.
The offense did an “all-around good job,” according to Pratt. “There’s just knits and knacks that we need to get together on,” he said. “I want to shout out my quarterback Dom[inique] because he really stepped up big time for us.”
The Bears’ defense picked up the pace in the second half, forcing two fumbles and one interception to help keep the game close.
Linebacker Erick Hunter recognized that in recent games, the Bears’ defense starts slow in the first half and plays well in the second.
“I don’t really like being a second-half team,” he said. “It’s really about coming out the gate swinging too. ”
Despite finishing the game with ten total tackles, (nine solo and one assist), Williams said that he felt like he played “decent” and cared much more about winning the game.
“The individual goals are cool but team success is way better.”
The Bears fall to 1-3 this season. They will travel to New Haven, Conn. to play Yale University next Saturday at 12 p.m.
