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Surprising end too quick for ’Cats

By Staff | Dec 22, 2014

They wanted just a little more.

The UNH football team had the school-record 12-game winning streak and the school-record 14-game winning streak in Cowell Stadium.

The Wildcats are a group full of seniors, with seniors at all sorts of key positions and they won the Colonial Athletic Association championship with a perfect 8-0 mark for the program’s first outright title in exactly 20 years, they earned the No. 1 seed in the NCAA FCS Championship and the right to play home games through the tournament semifinals.

Then they advanced to the semifinals for the second year in a row, and the second time ever, and they got to play the game in their beloved and rocking Dungeon.

They wanted a little more. And they were close. Really close.

That’s what maybe hurt the most after Saturday’s 21-18 loss to No. 5 seed Illinois State in the Dungeon knocked UNH out of the FCS tournament.

Illinois State improved to 13-1 and advances to the FCS title game in Frisco, Texas, on Jan. 10 against North Dakota State, which has won the last three national championships.

UNH lost to at North Dakota State, 52-14, in the semis last year.

“It doesn’t get easier,” said UNH senior defensive end and captain Cody Muller. “It hurt last year. All of sudden now it was so close. To go down to a fourth down play right at the end.”

The Wildcats were looking for one last stop to give them one last shot with the ball.

“And they converted it,” Muller said. “It stings and it’s going to sting for a while, but we’ve accomplished so much this season, more than what we’ve done in the past. And we’ve got to be proud of that.”

What might have been and what might be, add to the sting, said senior running back Nico Steriti.

“What hurts the most is knowing we could have won that game,” he said. “We should have won that game. When we lost to North Dakota State last year we looked ourselves in the mirror and knew we just weren’t there. That’s when you can just celebrate on the season we had. This one hurts more because we really feel like we could have won that game and we really could have won the whole thing. That’s what hurts the most for me. If Illinois State wins the whole thing, I’m going to be sick to my stomach, to be honest with you.”

The Wildcats close out the season and their nation’s best 11th straight appearance in the FCS tournament with the most wins in program history and a 12-2 record.

On Saturday, they held Illinois State well under its average of 40.5 points a game. They held standout running back Marshaun Coprich to 79 yards on 24 carries, the first time he’s been under 100 yards all season.

On the flip side, they scored at half their own 37.5 points a game pace.

Steriti’s 6-yard touchdown run and an Andy Vailas run for the two-point conversion put UNH up 15-3 less than two minutes into the second period.

The Wildcats scored only three points – on a Brad Prasky field goal – over the final 42-plus minutes.

“I felt like they couldn’t stop us, even though they held us to three points in the second half,” Steriti said. “I just feel like we were rolling. But when we needed to make plays we weren’t making them like we usually do. A couple of passes, couple of reads, couple of blocks, whatever it was. It’s one of the few times you’ll ever see us not execute those plays.”

The Wildcats don’t talk about this stuff much, but they were missing a few of their weapons on both sides of the ball as the game went along.

Starting defensive back Steven Thames missed the game with a knee injury.

Vailas, running with the ball off a pitch from Sean Goldrich, took a hit on the first play of the second half and was done for the game with a head injury.

Sophomore defensive back and returner Casey DeAndrade left the game after injuring his knee on a punt return midway through the third period.

And senior wide receiver R.J. Harris, who hurt his ankle in the final seconds of the first half, got taped and returned in the second but then left for good early in the fourth quarter, also with a head injury.

Still, in the end, they had their chances.

“It just didn’t work out for us tonight,” Steriti said.

They came close. But came out wanting just a little more.

“We thought we had it,” Muller said. “They made a couple of plays. They’re a good football team. It’s going to be a great game down in Texas. Proud of what we did though. It’s been a heck of a year. Defensively, we stepped up. It’s been one of the best we’ve had here in a long time. Offensively, too. I can’t say enough about how proud I am of these guys.”

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