The Dayton Flyers rallied behind a 10-point fourth quarter to take down Robert Morris, 17-14, Saturday in a nonconference matchup at Joe Walton Stadium.
RMU, which fell to 1-3, led 14-7 after three quarters, but Dayton tied the score when quarterback Bryce Schondelmyer found Luke Hanson for an 11-yard touchdown with 12 minutes, 35 seconds left in the fourth quarter.
The Flyers weren’t done there as they forced a punt. Schondelmyer, who completed 13 of 20 passes for 194 yards and two touchdowns, found wide receiver Michael Mussari for 45 yards, to the RMU 25.
Dayton pushed deep into Colonial territory with runs from Mason Hackett but RMU’s defense stiffened, forcing the Flyers to go for three. Kicker Robby Smart pushed through a 21-yard field goal to go up 17-14, which was Dayton’s first lead of the game, with 3:28 left in the game.
“This is just one of those field goals that I’m going to make,” Smart said. “I had a couple in high school that were like that…I felt that when the team got down there, it was my job to just put it through the uprights, which I did.”
The Dayton defense held up, shutting the door on RMU with Dayton’s Mac Grant III breaking up a Jake Wolfe pass to Thomas Lee on a fourth-and-10 with less than two minutes to play.
Grant III spearheaded Flyer defense, which held the Colonials scoreless in the fourth quarter, tallying nine total tackles.
The Flyers gained 286 yards, with 144 of those yards coming in the final quarter. Smart saw his team take control and knew his time to make a big play was coming.
“I was pretty aware of it,” Smart said. “I had actually been getting ready to kick a 40-yarder on that drive mentally, so when they started getting closer, it made it much easier for me.”
Hackett was one of those players who made it easier as he led the team on the ground, racking up 104 yards on 18 carries.
The Colonials led early when Jaqai Carter leaped to grab a Zach Tanner pass on a deep corner route for 31 yards, putting them inside the Flyer 10-yard line.
Ethan Shine punched in a 1-yard touchdown to go up 7-0 late in the first quarter..
The Flyers knotted it up, 7-7, on Schondelmyer’s 7-yard touchdown pass to Gavin Lochow in the second quarter.
Both defenses held each other’s offense in check in the first half as RMU limited Dayton to 118 yards, and despite a 151-yard outburst, the Colonials managed just seven points.
Tanner, Robert Morris’s veteran quarterback, went down with an injury late in the second quarter on a hard hit.
Enter Wolfe, the Montour alum. He and running backs Shine and Donta Whack took up half the third quarter on a long 75-yard drive where they collectively accounted for all the yardage, with Wolfe running for 28 yards on four carries. His 19-yard run put the Colonials in Dayton territory, and Shine’s 9-yard scoring run gave RMU a 14-7 lead.
From that point on, however, it was all Dayton.
“It feels great when the team’s able to eke out a tough victory like this against a tough opponent,” Smart said. “It’s always a great thing to help the Flyers win a football game.”
Photos by Mike Longo Jr.
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