The final score won’t be telling on how the closely the game was played for a majority of Saturday afternoon for the Maine Black Bears against Northern Illinois out of the FBS. Quarterback Rocky Lombardi ran for the three touchdowns and passed for another, as the Huskies would score 17 fourth quarter points and pull away for a 41-14 win in a non-conference football matchup at Brigham Field in Dekalb, Illinois.
Maine (1-3) never led but did answer each touchdown by Northern Illinois over the first 19 minutes of play. The Huskies immediately marched down the field in 9 plays (77 yards) on the opening drive of the game getting a seven yard TD run from Harrison Waylee. Later in the first quarter, the visiting Black Bears answered on a 28 yard touchdown run from Freddie Brock. The hosts re-took the lead on a 22 yard TD reception by Clint Ratkovich from quarterback Rocky Lombardi early in the second quarter. Just 4:08 later though, Elijah Barnwell scored on a four yard run to tie it for the Bears 14-14. NIU (2-2) took the lead for good when Lombardi found paydirt on a seven run run and the Huskies had a 21-14 halftime advantage.
Maine had some chances in the second half. With a 10 point lead at 24-14, a turnover on a fumble by Lombardi in his own territory was returned 20 yards to the Northern Illinois 15 yard line by the Black Bears Khairi Manns. They would get to the Huskies five yard line with a first and goal but couldn’t punch it in, and a 23 yard field goal by Jonny Messina would miss keeping the NIU advantage at 10. Lombardi would add rushing TDs of 64 and 18 yards in the fourth quarter to seal the victory.
Derek Robertson in his third game (second start) at QB didn’t turn the ball over and played efficiently going 14-26 passing for 165 yards. Brock was a bright spot all day rushing 18 times for 85 yards with the one score and almost a 5.0 yard per carry average. Andre Miller (5 rec, 87 yards) and Devin Young (6-70) led the receiving core. Josh Lezin, Ray Miller, and Fofie Bazzie had eight tackles each for the defense. David Gelb had another strong day punting to lead the special teams unit, with seven of them and an average of 49.1 with three over 50 yards. Lombardi was the offensive leader in the game going 17-24 passing for 282 yards with one touchdown with one interception, and three rushing scores with 10 carries for 130 yards. Waylee also had the one rushing TD finishing with 130 yards on 23 attempts. Cole Tucker had four catches for 114 yards, and C.J. Brown, Jordan Hansen, and Dillon Thomas had eight tackles a piece for the Huskies defense. Maine who is now 3-23 all-time against FBS opponents, has only conference games remaining on their schedule as they have a week off and take their 0-2 CAA record into an October 9th matchup at home against Elon.
