It was a tale of two halves in Grand Forks, North Dakota on Saturday night as the host Fighting Hawks used a big comeback in the second half to upset Montana 27-24. The 23rd ranked North Dakota team scored 20 unanswered points in the second half for the win.
Montana dominated the opening period, taking a 24-7 lead into the halftime break, but were stymied in the second half offensively as the ground game of the hosts picked up momentum as they won their 38th straight home opener.
“They did a good job, but that wasn’t good enough by us,” head coach Bobby Hauck said. “We had the game in hand, in control, I thought we were in the right frame of mind coming out of halftime and they got a big stop and then we just didn’t execute and get some first downs.”
The Grizzlies just couldn’t get the offense going and got just four opportunities in the second half, going three-and-out their first three drives of the half while North Dakota had three scoring drives that lasted at least five minutes each.
Montana scored 21 points in the first quarter behind a hot start from quarterback Keali’I Ah Yat and running back Eli Gillman. They totaled 195 yards in the first 15 minutes alone, but couldn’t recreate the success the rest of the way.
Ah Yat ended the game 20-of-28 for 145 yards and a touchdown. Gillman had 86 yards on eight carries while Nick Ostmo had 45 yards on eight carries. Xavier Harris had five catches for 56 yards and touchdown.
Jace Klucewich had his first career interception. Ronald Jackson Jr. led the team with 12 tackles, 10 of which were solo.
“It was a wild game, good job by North Dakota coming back and getting us,” Hauck said.
“But you know, I really think the enemy is us and that starts with me, certainly. We can’t go through them like that in the first half and then come out and not be able to get a first down in the second half, that’s ridiculous.”
After the teams traded three-and-outs to start the game, Montana opened their second drive in good field position. Nick Ostmo picked up 11 yards to move the ball into North Dakota territory, and it set up the redshirt-freshman quarterback for a moment of pure magic.
Ah Yat stepped into the pocket with a pair of Hawks closing in on him. He sensed a third would-be tackler coming from behind and spun away from a sack, leaving three defenders behind him. Once on the perimeter, Ah Yat fired a dart to Xavier Harris, who walked into the end zone for a 37-yard score.
North Dakota found some momentum on their ensuing drive, moving into Grizzly territory. The Montana defense held firm and forced a fourth-and-short. The Fighting Hawks went for it, but the play was blown up by Riley Wilson hurrying the quarterback and forcing an incompletion and a turnover in the process.
Montana wasted no time in scoring. Gillman took a run up the middle, stepped through an arm tackle and dashed 63 yards into the end zone for his third rushing touchdown of the season and 16th of his career.
North Dakota responded with a five-play, 70-yard scoring drive to cut the lead to 14-7 with 4:15 still to play in the opening quarter.
The track meet continued on Montana’s next drive as Nick Ostmo found a big hole for a 24-yard gain to move his team right back into North Dakota territory. Ah Yat ran for a third down conversion to keep the drive alive, and then Montana ran a reverse to Aaron Fontes and the speedy receiver won on the edge and scored from 18 yards out to make it a two-score game again.
The Grizzlies got a defensive stop but failed on a fourth down attempt of their own near midfield to give it back to the Hawks in Montana territory. It didn’t take much time for the Griz defense to make another big play.
Henry Nuce hit UND quarterback Simon Romfo as he delivered a pass, and the ball floated well short of the intended target and into the hands of Jace Klucewich for his first career interception.
The Griz couldn’t take advantage of the turnover, but got one more chance offensively inside of two minutes. Ah Yat re-entered the game after making way on the previous drive for Logan Fife and continued his impressive first half.
He connected on a few quick passes before hitting Keelan White on a screen to move into UND’s half of the field. Ah Yat and the Grizzly offense moved quickly into the red zone and took a field goal as time expired to go into the halftime break ahead 24-7.
The quarterback finished the opening half 16-of-21 for 136 yards and a touchdown. He connected on 14 of his first 15 passes as the Grizzlies outgained North Dakota 271 to 136 in the opening half hour.
The Fighting Hawks opened the second half with the two consecutive scoring drives and Montana started with two straight three-and-outs to allow the hosts to climb back to just a three-point deficit at 24-21 at the end of the third quarter.
North Dakota opened the fourth quarter with the ball and drove inside the Grizzly five, but the Montana defense held up and forced a field goal that tied the game up at 24-24 with just over 11 minutes to play.
Fife took over at quarterback for the following Montana drive, but it led to another three-and-out as North Dakota took over again. The Fighting Hawks faced a fourth down near midfield on the next drive and picked up the conversion.
They pushed it all the way down to the 23-yard line, but Montana’s defense stopped the Hawks on third down and forced a field goal try. North Dakota took their first lead of the game with the 40-yard field goal with just 2:16 remaining in the game.
“They ran the ball successfully. It seemed like they just had the ball and grinded it out and kept going down and getting field goals and getting ahead of us,” Hauck said. “I’m really disappointed because we looked like I wanted us to in the first half and the second half we didn’t. I’m just really upset about losing that game.”
The Grizzlies picked up nine yards in the first three plays of the drive, and faced possible devastation if they could not pick up a yard on the fourth down attempt. They drew up a quarterback draw, and Ah Yat broke a tackle and scrambled for 32 yards to put the Grizzlies in North Dakota territory.
Montana tried a 54-yard field goal, but it missed wide right and the Fighting Hawks were able to take a knee and ice the win.
North Dakota had the ball for over 12 minutes in the fourth quarter, and won the time of possession battle 24:07 to 5:53 in the second half. It led to a 204-34 advantage in total yards in the final two quarters.
The Grizzlies will return to Washington-Grizzly Stadium next week to face off against Morehead State. The game will kickoff at 1:00 p.m. The message that Hauck wants his team to take from this game?
“The real message was that talk is cheap. We’ve got to play better,” he said. “We played really well the first half. That was a great half of football. The second half was the absolute other half of that coin. We need to challenge ourselves… It’s a shame not to come out of here with a win. I blame the head coach first, and then I’m going to challenge our guys to have a great week.”