HAWAII 31, FRESNO STATE 21
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Fresno State's Dee Meza blocked Mat McBriar's punt before running it in for a touchdown last night.Finally Road Warriors FRESNO, Calif. >> When Hawaii came up short at Brigham Young and Boise State earlier this season, Warriors coach June Jones chalked up the losses to running out of time.
Hawaii comes back from 12 points down
Consistent Colbert has a spectacular game
in the fourth quarter for its first
win in Fresno since 1973
Stats / Notes
By Dave Reardon
dreardon@starbulletin.comHe was proud of the way his team kept playing hard despite falling to what looked like -- and turned out to be -- impossible-to-make-up deficits.
Last night, UH's resiliency paid off in one of the program's biggest victories, a 31-21 upset at Fresno State that kept the Warriors (6-2, 5-1 Western Athletic Conference) in the race for the league championship and moved them to within one victory of a second consecutive winning season and a ConAgra Foods Hawaii Bowl bid.
True, it can be said officially now that the Bulldogs (4-5, 2-2) are suffering through an off year. But that didn't diminish how the Warriors felt about beating rival Fresno State for the first time at Bulldog Stadium. A crowd of 37,615, including nearly a thousand Hawaii fans, saw UH score 22 points in the fourth quarter against the Bulldogs for the second year in a row.
"This is incredible, a great feeling," senior linebacker Matt Wright said as he walked the infamous -- but this time, quiet -- "Red Mile" back to the makeshift visitors' locker room. "I've been waiting to do this for a while now."
Hawaii won at Fresno for only the fourth time in 15 meetings and the first since before any of UH's current players were born, in 1973.
Why was this team able to accomplish what others before it could not?
"It's character and it's togetherness and it's chemistry. We're getting better as a football team," Jones said. "If you get a punt blocked for a touchdown on the road you usually pack it in and go home. But these guys have a different heart. Even the year we won three games, we had great character. That's what makes it fun to coach these kids."
Hawaii rallied from a 21-9 deficit as quarterback Tim Chang passed for two fourth-quarter touchdowns after the Warriors hadn't crossed the end zone in three quarters. Also, cornerback Kelvin Millhouse came up with two crucial interceptions in the final period.
"We sucked it up and the linemen did a great job of staying with the play," Chang said. "The receivers did a great job of getting open continuously. It was an overall great effort by the team."
Chang -- with UH's starting quarterback of last season, Nick Rolovich, watching from the sideline -- passed for a career-high 462 yards.
"Timmy Chang was marvelous. He did what great quarterbacks do, winning the game in the final two minutes," Jones said. "Go the length of the field, convert third downs, like the big-time guys do."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hawaii's Jeremiah Cockheran hauled in a pass as Fresno State's Tyrone Culver defended last night. UH came back to win.
The winning touchdown was a 13-yard pass from Chang to a wide-open Britton Komine with 2 minutes and 25 seconds left and a fourth-and-4 situation.
This would be the game.
"Britt was getting held up on the line. I knew he was going to get loose sometime," Chang said. "Right when I threw it he shook off the guy and caught the ball in the end zone and that's all I remember."
There will be lots of memories from this night, especially for Justin Colbert (career-high 11 catches for 188 yards) and Jeremiah Cockheran (5 for 112).
And the defense, too.
Komine's touchdown made it 24-21, Hawaii, but the Bulldogs were not out of it yet. They drove to the UH 38.
But Millhouse grabbed his second interception of Fresno State quarterback Paul Pinegar with 58 seconds left on a fly pattern intended for Jermaine Jamison that could have gone for a game-winning touchdown.
Millhouse's first pick, with 5:25 left, set up the go-ahead drive.
He had given up a 39-yard completion -- FSU's longest play of the night -- that helped an earlier Bulldogs' scoring drive.
"After I messed up on that one play when they caught that ball on me, I had to buckle down and have patience and confidence and hope I could make up for it later in the game," Millhouse said.
That was a theme for the Hawaii defense. The Warriors led 9-7 at halftime despite allowing 117 rushing yards. UH defensive coordinator Kevin Lempa said the Warriors didn't make any significant second-half adjustments after Rodney Davis rushed for 88 of his game-high 140 yards.
"We played the same defenses, we played them better. We put them in third-down situations and showed them blitzes we hadn't used before," Lempa said. "A couple sacks. That helped us. The key was getting a turnover. We hadn't got one all game. Then Kelvin gets two."
Fresno State had two first downs in the fourth quarter.
"We made those big plays to get them off the field and that helped a lot," said linebacker Pisa Tinoisamoa, who contributed a sack before the first interception -- and some leadership.
"Pisa came up big. He rallied the underclassmen," sophomore cornerback Abraham Elimimian said. "He saw in some of our eyes that we needed something from him, and he told us this might be his last year and we needed to do it for him and the other seniors. That's what a captain does."
Center Lui Fuata said Jones kept the Warriors focused on doing what they needed to do to come back.
"Coach told us, 'Everybody keep their composure because they're a very undisciplined team,' " Fuata said. "We just needed to be very disciplined and keep the penalties down. We did, and we came out on top."
Fresno State was penalized 13 times for 107 yards, but it almost didn't matter.
The Bulldogs led 21-9 after Dee Meza blocked Mat McBriar's punt, recovered it and ran it 10 yards past the UH goal line at 5:43 of the third quarter. Fresno State took a 21-9 lead on its third blocked kick of the season.
FSU had just taken the lead, 14-9, on Pinegar's 8-yard pass to Marque Davis at the back corner of the end zone at 6:51. The call was hotly contested by Elimimian.
The Warriors -- whose offense had been three Justin Ayat field goals, including a 50-yarder -- finally scored a touchdown with 13:43 left in the game when Chang hit Colbert for a 58-yard score. Colbert broke open across the middle at the FSU 25 and Chang hit him in stride.
The extra point made it 21-16.
UH's defense stopped Fresno's next drive at the Hawaii 41, but Bulldogs punter Jason Simpson and gunner Adam Jennings pinned the Warriors at their own 3.
Tyrone Culver intercepted Chang 12 plays later with 6:59 left after UH had driven to the FSU 25. But Millhouse's first interception came three plays later, and three consecutive passes for first downs put the Warriors at the Bulldogs' 19. Short passes to Neal Gossett and Colbert and an incomplete set up the final drama to Komine.
Davis bulled in from 3 yards out for Fresno's first score with 5:06 left in the first quarter.
"Hawaii's a great team. It's always good playing them. They just made plays at the end to win the game," Jennings said.
Fresno State coach Pat Hill said his team played hard, but that didn't make any difference.
"The bottom line in this profession is winning, and we just didn't get it done," he said. "We've got to learn how to win these games in the fourth quarter."
BACK TO TOP |
[ KEY STATS ]
[ GAME STATS ]
First quarter SCORING SUMMARY
FSU -- R.Davis 3 run (Asparuhov kick), 5:06.
UH -- FG Ayat 39, 1:55.Second quarter
UH -- FG Ayat 50, 4:58.
UH -- FG Ayat 26, :03.Third quarter
FSU -- M.Davis 8 pass from Pinegar (Asparuhov kick), 6:51.
FSU -- Meza 10 blocked punt return (Asparuhov kick), 5:43.Fourth quarter
UH -- Colbert 58 pass from Chang (Ayat kick), 13:43.
UH -- Komine 13 pass from Chang (Komine pass from Chang), 2:25.
UH -- West 81 run (Ayat kick), :41.
RUSHING -- Hawaii: West 3-90, Bass 6-18, Withy-Allen 1-0, team 1-(minus 1), Chang 4-(minus 23). Fresno St.: R.Davis 28-140, Jennings 2-17, Sumlin 4-15, M.Davis 1-5, Pinegar 8-(minus 11). INDIVIDUAL STATS
PASSING -- Hawaii: Chang 36-61-1-462. Fresno St.: Pinegar 18-29-2-167.
RECEIVING -- Hawaii: Colbert 11-188, Komine 6-79, Cockerham 5-112, Mitchell 4-8, Ilaoa 3-29, West 3-11, Herbert 2-31, Gossett 1-3, Bass 1-1. Fresno St.: Reid 4-47, M.Davis 3-36, Jamison 2-50, Gilbert 2-13, Greco 2-9, Sumlin 2-(minus 1), Spach 1-13, R.Davis 1-5, Shack 1-(minus 5).
A37,615.
WAC STANDINGS
CONFERENCE OVERALL W L W L Str Boise St. 3 0 6 1 W5 Hawaii 5 1 6 2 W3 San Jose St. 2 1 4 4 L2 Nevada 2 1 3 4 W1 Fresno St. 2 2 4 5 L1 LaTech 1 2 2 5 L4 UTEP 1 2 2 5 W1 Rice 1 3 2 5 L1 SMU 1 3 1 7 L9 Tulsa 0 3 0 7 L17 Friday
Hawaii 31, Fresno State 21Today
Nevada at Louisiana Tech
Boise State at San Jose State
UTEP at Tulsa
SMU at Rice
[ TURNING POINT ]
Britton Komine caught six passes for 79 yards last night at Fresno State, including the biggest reception of his life. Komine’s game-winner
silenced Fresno fansIt came on fourth down-and-four, with Hawaii at the FSU 13-yard line.
And Komine almost didn't get to where he needed to be.
The 5-foot-9, 184-pound slotback had to battle off the line of scrimmage. But when he did, he was wide open and quarterback Tim Chang found him for the go-ahead score with 2 minutes, 25 seconds left in the game.
Bulldog Stadium, the loudest it was all night seconds earlier, stood in stunned silence -- except for several hundred Hawaii fans near the end zone where Komine cradled the pass.
Hawaii led 24-21, and Kelvin Millhouse's second interception of the fourth quarter six plays later sealed the win.
Dave Reardon, Star-Bulletin
[ COMING UP ]
Surprising Spartans
Next Saturday Hawaii hosts San Jose State, another team making a run toward a winning record and bowl eligibility.
next for WarriorsThe Spartans gained a measure of respect by winning 38-35 at Illinois in September and began their Western Athletic Conference slate with wins over Texas-El Paso and at Southern Methodist.
But San Jose State (4-4, 2-1 WAC) has since lost two in a row and is an underdog against conference-leader Boise State today.
Charles Pauley is second nationally in kickoff return average at 34.4. He's taken two back for touchdowns.
Also, Gerald Jones is No. 2 in the country in interceptions with six in seven games.
UH beat San Jose State 34-10 last year at Aloha Stadium, as Thero Mitchell rushed for two touchdowns and Justin Colbert caught six passes for 108 yards and a touchdown. Keani Alapa led Hawaii with 13 tackles.
Dave Reardon, Star-Bulletin
UH Athletics
