WEST LIBERTY, W.Va. – The Mountain East Conference Thursday Night Game of the Week turned into the game of the year at rainswept West Family Stadium here Thursday night as Notre Dame (Ohio) survived a furious West Liberty comeback to escape with a wild 59-51 victory.
The Falcons (3-5, 3-4) rolled up more than 400 yards of total offense in the first half to take a stunning 38-10 lead into the locker room at intermission but Coach Roger Waialae’s Hilltoppers (4-4, 4-3) refused to fold.
With the defense digging in its heels and junior QB Dakota Conwell leading a resurgent WLU offense, the Black and Gold reeled off four unanswered touchdowns to forge a 38-38 deadlock on the first play of the fourth quarter.
“We’ve started slow the last two weeks,” Waialae said, “and I’m going to have to do something to change that. We can’t wait until our backs are to the wall to start playing like our backs are to the wall. We have to play with that kind of urgency from the opening kickoff. That being said, we didn’t do any yelling or screaming at halftime. The kids were embarrassed enough by the way we’d played but they knew it wasn’t over. Notre Dame had made a lot of big plays but we have guys who can make plays, too.”
Conwell was virtually unstoppable over the final two quarters, completing 17-of-22 passes for 317 yards and 4 TDs while rushing for 58 yards and 2 more scores. He finished the night with career-highs of 405 passing yards and 489 yards of total offense.
“I had to make the decision to go to the 2-minute offense midway through the second quarter,” Waialae said. “Dakota knows the offense so well, that he was calling the game on the field for the last 2 ½ quarters. Once we got into our fast offense, it was hard for their defense to get their signals in and we had a lot of guys step up.”
Conwell hit freshman WR Ian Kelly on a deep crossing route to open the fourth quarter and Kelly turned the corner past a pair of Notre Dame defenders and tightroped down the left sideline for a 66-yard touchdown, knotting the score at 38-38 with 14:45 still showing on the scoreboard.
The Hilltoppers seemed on the verge of taking the lead when the WLU defense forced a fumble and Conwell led another drive into Falcon territory.
Momentum turned again on a second-and-8 call from the Notre Dame 30 when Falcon defensive lineman Claudy Mathieu leaped high to pull down an attempted screen pass and sprinted 70 yards to paydirt for a stunning 45-38 Notre Dame lead with 9:45 to go.
West Liberty went three-and-out on its next possession and the Falcons pushed the count to 52-38 on a 4-yard TD burst by D.J. Greene with just 3:37 remaining but Conwell answered with a 47-yard TD strike to WR Anton McCallum with2:39 still on the clock, trimming the margin to 52-44.
An onside kick failed and WLU burned all three timeouts in an attempt to force a turnover on downs. On fourth-and-2 from the Hilltopper 32, Greene slammed into a wall of West Liberty players but bounced off and squirted through a gap for a 32-yard TD run.
That gave Notre Dame a 59-44 lead with 2:08 to go but the Hilltoppers still weren’t finished. A 41-yard pass to McCallum and a 31-yard toss to Max Kapron set up a 1-yard scoring toss to McCallum, making it a one-possession game again with 1:25 still to play.
Unfortunately for the hosts, the Falcons were able to bat the onside kick out of bounds to gain possession and ran out the clock.
“I’m really proud of my kids for the way they fought back, not just coming back from halftime but in the fourth quarter, as well. That’s a testimony to our senior leadership. Probably 99 out of 100 teams would have just packed it in at halftime or after the interception but our guys never blinked. I really believe if we had been able to recover one of those onside kicks, we were going to go down and score again. We just came up one possession short.”
The offensive numbers on both sides of the ball were staggering – and nearly identical. West Liberty had 627 yards of total offense on 83 plays while Notre Dame finished with 625 yards on 82 snaps.
Hilltopper senior TE Daree Goodwin led all receivers with 10 catches for 158 yards and a TD while McCallum had 5 catches for 115 yards and 2 scores to go along with a 15-yard rushing TD in the first half. Jeremiah Ortiz ran for 91 yards on 19 carries as the hosts finished with 222 rushing yards on 41 attempts.
Notre Dame QB Malik Grove had a 10-yard TD run in the first half but did most of his damage through the air, completing 30-of-42 passes for 499 yards and 3 TDs with 389 of his passing yards coming in the first half. Three Falcon receivers topped the 100-yard mark – Mitch Shegos (11-148), Emmanuel Smith (10-124) and C.J. Germany (6-138) – while Green had 142 rushing yards on 31 carries.
The Hilltoppers return to action on Oct. 31 with a noon kickoff at nationally-ranked Shepherd.
