NEWTON, Mass. – Senior wide receiver Matt Greenman (Portsmouth, R.I.) caught seven passes for 149 yards, including two long touchdowns from Jack Sheehan (St. Petersburg, Fla.), but Mount Ida College turned the ball over four times and suffered a 26-14 loss to visiting Castleton University in Eastern Collegiate Football Conference (ECFC) action on Saturday afternoon at Alumni Field.
The Mustangs, coming off of their first win in program history at Norwich, fall to 1-4 on the year and 1-1 in conference play, while Castleton (2-3) earns their first ever win in four tries at Mount Ida, and improves to 2-0 in the league.
Sophomore quarterback Mitchell Caron (Augusta, Maine) tossed two touchdowns and ran for one more and Castleton built a 20-0 lead before Mount Ida got on the board with a 52-yard pass from Sheehan to Greenman along the right sideline.
Castleton sophomore Moe Harris (Pine Hill, N.J.) ran for 90 yards and a touchdown, and Makai Hawkins (Bronx, N.Y.) got the scoring started at the beginning of the second quarter with a 23 yard touchdown pass after a scoreless first quarter.
Caron capped a seven-play, seventy-three yard drive later in the quarter with a one-yard punch-in and Harris added to the lead just a minute later after his eleven yard run capitalized on a Mount Ida fumble on the ensuing possession.
Mount Ida got a stron effort from freshman running back Gary Deanley (Hammonton, N.J.), who ran for 94 yards, and Travis O'Brien (Portsmouth, R.I.), who averaged 4.2 yards per carry with 76 total yards from scrimmage.
Sean Chinova (Watertown, Conn.) led Mount Ida with 11 tackles and Desean Hart (Mays Landing, N.J.) had an interception, while Darren Callan (Fairfield, Vt.) was all over the field for the Spartans, leading all players with 16.5 stops. Bubba Collins (Newport, Vt.) had 4.5 tackles, 2.5 of them for a loss and recovered a fumble, and Mark Alberque (Ridgefield Park, N.J.) and Tyler Sturtevant (Mechanic Falls, Maine) each intercepted Sheehan, with Alberque's all but sealing the victory for the Spartans late in the fourth.
The Mustangs scored the only points of the third quarter when, on the first play from scrimmage at 1:14 left in the period, Sheehan found Greenman down the seam, and the senior wideout made a fantastic over the shoulder catch and then beat his defender for a 75 yard score.
That pulled the score to 20-14, but the Mustangs lost the momentum when a trick play pass from Greenman was intercepted, and then almost immediately turned into points when Caron found Edward Doton (Barnard, Vt.) for a 52-yard touchdown pass to run the score to 26-14 in a drive that took just over a minute.
Doton was one of five players who had more than 40 receiving yards for the Spartains, and Soren Pelz-Walsh (Dummerston, Vt.) led the corps with 5 catches.
Castleton looks to stay undefeated in the conference when they host Husson next Saturday at 1:00 pm.
Mount Ida is back on the road next weekend with a 12:00 pm game against Gallaudet in our nation's capital.