GOING TO THE MATT: Princeton University football player Matt Arends surveys the action in a game earlier this fall. Last Saturday, senior linebacker and co-captain Arends fought hard in his last game for the Tigers, making nine tackles and forcing a fumble in a losing cause as Princeton fell 17-10 at Dartmouth. The defeat left the Tigers with a final record of 5-5 overall and 2-5 Ivy League. (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)

In 2013, the Princeton University football team played at Dartmouth in the season finale needing a win to clinch an outright Ivy League title only to get upended 28-24 by the Big Green.

Last Saturday, Princeton headed back to Hanover, N.H. and looked to return the favor as Dartmouth was locked in a three-way tie for the Ivy lead heading into the final day of action, knowing that a victory would ensure at least a share of the title.

Playing the spoiler role with aplomb, Princeton led 7-0 at halftime and forged ahead 10-7 in the third quarter and held that lead with less than five minutes left in regulation.

Princeton head coach coach Bob Surace was proud of the way his team contained the high-powered Big Green and superstar quarterback Dalyn Williams.

“We did a good job on the pass rush and for the most part we stayed in our rush lanes,” said Surace.

“Williams is a tremendous scrambler in addition to his throwing ability. We even batted down a bunch of balls. I don’t know how many, it had to be three or four as well. I thought we did a good job in our coverage, most of the throws and catches that they had were very contested and difficult catches.”

But the Big Green was able to score the last 10 points of the contest, getting a field goal with 4:54 left to knot the game at 10-10 and then scoring on a 12 yard pass from Williams to Kyle Bramble with 24 seconds left in regulation to earn a 17-10 victory.

“They did a good job of converting some opportunities, they are a very veteran squad,” said Surace in assessing the Dartmouth rally as it finished 9-1 overall and 6-1 Ivy, tying Harvard and Penn for the title, while Princeton ended at 5-5 overall and 2-5 Ivy.

“I think they start 16 seniors and a number of them are two-three year starters. They played very maturely down the stretch. We had a couple of drops, we had a couple of missed opportunities. We didn’t protect the passer as well in the fourth quarter as we had going into that.”

While Surace was frustrated that Princeton narrowly missed out on the opportunity for the upset, he had no qualms with the effort that he got from his players.

“I just told them I am proud of them,” said Surace, whose defense ended up with seven sacks, two fumble recoveries, and an interception.

“At the end of the day, the outcome wasn’t what we wanted. They are a hardworking team, they had great attitudes and for whatever reason, it is not a round ball, it doesn’t always bounce the right way sometimes. There are lessons to learn on how more detailed we have to be, how more exact we have to be. This year’s team had a lot of adversity. The one thing about it is that they fought and they worked hard, they were easy to coach, they were accountable, they do all those things.”

The team’s seniors set a battling tone, exemplified by how co-captains Matt Arends and Seth DeValve along with star running back DiAndre Atwater fought through injury to be on the field for the finale.

“They are just great men, all three of those guys (Arends, DeValve, and Atwater) had their struggles this year,” said Surace, who got 31 yards rushing and a touchdown from Atwater against Dartmouth with wide receiver DeValve contributing nine catches for 110 yards and linebacker Arends making nine tackles and forcing a fumble.

“Matt’s knee has been a grapefruit, it was that swollen in the middle of the week. He just goes and plays and was running all over the field. It didn’t pay off on the field, it is going to pay off in the guys’ lives. Fortunately for the guys returning we are moving forward. Unfortunately for those guys, we had a lot of disappointment and frustration. You move forward, you go to the next day, you keep fighting and battling. That is all you can ask of them and that is what they did.”

It was a disappointing fall of near misses for the Tigers who lost 38-31 to Brown, 26-23 in overtime to Penn, and 35-28 to Yale in addition to the narrow defeat to Dartmouth.

“There were great highs, we beat Colgate and they won the Patriot League,” said Surace.

“We are 4-0 after beating a team that is going to the playoffs. There are some really big disappointments, the four games where the score is tied or where we had the lead late in the fourth quarter and just didn’t find the magic recipe to get the win. We worked hard at it but sometimes the other team makes one more play than you. We have got to figure out how to switch that. It is not this giant gap, it is a small gap but we have to keep working and come together and figure that part out.”

In order to close that gap, it will take an across-the-board effort from players and coaches.

“Some of that comes from experience, some of that comes from leadership,” said Surace, noting that his 2012 team lost some heartbreakers in going 5-5 and applied the lessons learned from that experience to go 8-2 and share the Ivy title the next season.

“Some of that comes from me being better and others getting better around me, figuring out the right message. You go 5-5 and just knowing how close the games were to being the other way, it is obviously frustrating.”