Historic Season Comes to an End at Ithaca in NCAA's

ITHACA, N.Y. - The historic 2022 season came to end for the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth football team at Ithaca College, 63-20, in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Junior Dante Aviles-Santos threw for 249 yards and two touchdowns. Senior Luis Gonzalez rushed for 52 yards and a TD and hauled in a 16-yard touchdown catch. 5th-year Keenan Little went for 78 yards and a score, while sophomore Angel Sanchez had 77 receiving yards.

Defensively, 5th-year JP Mason led the team with 15 tackles, while classmate Mekhi Geter finished with nine tackles and junior Jackson Wellman and senior Josh Lacerte each had seven stops. Junior Logan Chappell finished with an interception.

Ithaca capitalized on four UMass Dartmouth fumbles in the first quarter and built its lead to 28-0 early in the second quarter. The Bombers then went went for six two more times on rushing touchdowns of 35 and five yards to make it 42-0 at halftime.

UMass Dartmouth got on the board with a touchdown pass in the third quarter. After the defense forced a pair of Ithaca punts, a 14-yard pass to Sanchez, a pass interference call, and 18 yards rushing from Aponte, Aviles-Santos connected with Gonzalez for a 16-yard TD to make it a 42-6 game at the end of the third.

Ithaca would score on its very next drive, pushing the lead to 49-6 in the beginning of the fourth. UMass Dartmouth responded with a wild drive where the team turned the ball over three times, but each was negated due to a penalty, and finished with a nine-yard TD rush by Gonzalez, his 15th on the ground this season. Ithaca came right back with a 60-yard touchdown pass to go up, 56-13, with five minutes left. A minute later, Aviles-Santos found Little down the sideline for a 62-yard TD strike to bring the score to 56-20. The Bombers were not done, as a 21-yard rushing score made it 63-20 to finish it off.

2022 marked UMass Dartmouth's second NCAA Tournament appearance and first Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference (MASCAC) Championship in program history.

The Corsairs are set to return most of their players, and will look forward to 2023.