TROY, N.Y. – The Union College football team could not get going on the offensive side of the ball as the Garnet Chargers ceded the Dutchman Shoes Trophy to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in a 25-8 loss in the 76th edition of the Shoes game on Saturday afternoon at RPI's ECAV Stadium.
Rensselaer (8-2, 7-0 Liberty League), which already had clinched a share of the Liberty League title and an NCAA Tournament berth last week, earns the outright conference championship with the victory, while Union (5-5, 4-3 Liberty League) sees its season come to a close with the defeat.
Senior
Jordan Black led the defensive effort for Union with 11 tackles and 3.5 tackles for loss to go with one sack and one forced fumble, while classmate
Alex Carucci joined Black with six solo tackles and sophomores
Colt Wales and
Myles Beckett joined Carucci with seven total tackles.
Junior
Luke Sheehan completed 14-of-24 passes for 146 yards, with 73 of those yards going to senior
Owen Corrigan and 55 going to sophomore
Evan Anderson. Senior
Cole Brisson was the team's leading rusher with 31 yards.
The first half was a defensive battle, with the teams combining for 10 punts and one interception. The teams traded punts for the first five drives of the game before one big play changed the tenor of the afternoon, as Kayden White took the ball 70 yards for a touchdown that put the Engineers up 6-0 early in the second quarter. The visitors got to the RPI 34-yard line on the next possession before the drive stalled, and the teams went into halftime with the same 6-0 score.
Rensselaer used another big play to find the end zone at the start of the third quarter, as Micah Balzarini connected on a 53-yard touchdown to Nate Ehui to put the home team up 12-0. The Engineers followed that up with their first sustained drive of the afternoon, going 38 yards on 11 plays to reach paydirt on a White five-yard touchdown run with 6:46 on the clock.
Union again got inside the RPI 40-yard line on the next possession but turned the ball over on downs, and RPI responded with another scoring drive to take a 25-0 lead less than 15 seconds into the fourth quarter.
The visitors reached the end zone on their longest drive of the day midway through the fourth quarter, marching 89 yards on 11 plays. Brisson had a key 13-yard scamper on third-and-long to keep the drive alive and two pass interference penalties got Union inside the five-yard line. On second-and-goal, senior
Michael Dinardo took the ball in wildcat formation and ran left into the end zone for the score, and senior
Mack McManus found sophomore
Bobby Starratt on the subsequent two-point attempt to make the score 25-8 with 4:51 left. Union punted on its next possession and the Engineers were able to run out the clock from there.
