Boxscore
Photo Courtesy of Mark Campbell

NEWARK, Del. -- The University of Delaware had No. 1 ranked and defending national champion University of Richmond on the ropes in the team’s Colonial Athletic Association football battle Saturday afternoon at Delaware Stadium.

The Blue Hens led the entire game until the final minutes, but when they had the opportunity to regain the lead and capture the victory in the final minute, a hand on short field goal attempt proved to be the difference.

Delaware (1-1, 0-1 CAA) had the chance to post the upset win, but Richmond’s 6-3 wide receiver Kevin Grayson leaped high to block a 23-yard field goal attempt by the Hens’ Jon Striefsky with 38 seconds left to send the Spiders (2-0, 1-0 CAA) to their 11th straight victory.

“Nothing good happens when you let a good team hang around,” said Delaware head coach K.C. Keeler, whose squad fell to Richmond for the third straight year. “We let one get away. Great teams find a way to win and Richmond did that today. We left a lot of points on the field and we had it, but we didn’t take care of it. This game should have never come down to a field goal, but it did. We have to find ways to win these close games.”

Richmond, which captured the 2008 NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision national title a year ago and opened its 2009 season with a 24-16 win at Duke last week, rallied from a 15-7 fourth-quarter deficit as quarterback Eric Ward scored on a one-yard burst with 12:27 left and Andrew Howard kicked what proved to be the game-winning field goal with a 23-yard kick with 5:54 left to play.

Delaware went three plays and out following Howard’s field goal, but the Blue Hens hung tough and forced the Spiders to punt on their next possession. An 18-yard punt by Richmond’s Brian Radford handed Delaware the ball on the Spider 42-yard line with 2:15 remaining, and UD quarterback Pat Devlin wasted little time, hitting Mark Schenauer down the middle for a 33-yard gain. The Hens then rushed three times to set up Striefsky’s.

Striefsky, a 2007 All-American who earlier in the day kicked field goals of 33 and 28 yards to give the Hens an 8-0 lead, was looking to avenge a missed kick vs. Richmond in 2007 when he missed on a 22-yarder in overtime that would have given Delaware the victory in what proved to be a 62-56 five-overtime setback. But the redemption never came as Striefsky’s kick was blocked by a leaping Grayson, giving the Spiders the hard-fought victory.

“We know Delaware is a very good team, it’s a shame someone had to lose this one,” said Richmond head coach Mike London. “But we’ll take it. Delaware played a fantastic game, we just found a way to win.”

Delaware jumped out to an 8-0 lead as the Hens opened the scoring eight minutes into the game with a safety and later added field goals of 33 and 28 yards by Striefsky, the second set up when All-American Charles Graves (top right) intercepted the first of two passes on the day when he snared an attempt by Richmond wide receiver Donte Boston on a trick play.

The Hens recorded the safety - the team’s first since 2005 - when Richmond’s Colin Pehanick sailed the punt snap over the head of Radford, who caught up to the ball in the end zone and wisely kicked it out of play. Richmond then cut the margin to 8-7 at the half when Ward found a wide-open Tre Gray on a six-yard slant in the end zone. with just 23 seconds left before intermission to cap a 12-play, 63-yard drive.

The score by Richmond marked the first point allowed by the Blue Hens this season as Delaware had opened the season last week with a 35-0 win over West Chester. The points snapped a streak of 108 minutes without allowing a score by UD dating back to third quarter of last season’s final game vs. Villanova.

The yards were hard to come by in the second half for the Blue Hens, who were held to just six first downs and 100 total yards over the final two quarters. But Delaware did capitalize early as they took advantage of another Richmond turnover to put points on the board.

Richmond’s Derek Hatcher fumbled a punt return at his own 19-yard line just three minutes into the half and Delaware’s Paul Worrilow recovered. After runs of four and eight yards by freshman Leon Jackson, Devlin raced into the end zone from seven yards out to up the Blue Hen lead to 15-7 with 10:38 left in the third quarter. But that would mark the end of Delaware’s scoring for the day.

Delaware’s defense, which allowed just 306 yards by Richmond for the day, made a strong goal-line stand when the Hens stopped the Spiders on a fourth and one from the one-yard line.

But Delaware’s offense could not move the ball and the Hens were forced to kick back to Richmond, which got possession on the Delaware 31-yard line after the punt and proceeded to move 31 yards, capped by a one-yard burst by Ward with 12:27 left to play to cut the UD margin to 15-13.

The Hens let another opportunity slip away later in the quarter when Graves intercepted Ward to give the Hens the ball at their own 22-yard line. But Devlin was picked off by Darryl Hamilton just three plays later with the Spider defensive back returning the ball to the Blue Hen 10-yard line. Four plays later Howard kicked what proved to be the game-winning field goal from 23 yards out with 5:54 left.

Ward hit on 22 of 32 passes for 247 yards and also lead the Spiders in rushing with 46 yard while Gray hauled in six passes for 68 yards. Devlin hit on 15 of 31 passes for 167 yards with Mark Mackey (bottom right) hauling in six passes for a game-high 81 yards. Jackson led all Blue Hen runners with 45 yards on 13 carries.

Linebacker Patrick Weldon led the Richmond defense with a game-high 11 tackles while CB Anthony Walters made nine stops and broke up two passes.

The Hens resume play next Saturday when they host in-state rival Delaware State at 12 noon at Delaware Stadium. Richmond returns home to host Hofstra next Saturday at 3:30 p.m.