BIDDEFORD — Saturday’s 34-31 loss to Gallaudet stung the University of New England football team. It was a winnable game, and it hurt to walk off the blue turf of Blue Storm Stadium knowing that a victory slipped away in front of 1,446 fans.

Ultimately, the pain of a close loss is a good thing for the Nor’easters, who dropped to 2-1 this season. The pain is a sign of growth. It’s a sign that a football program that played its first varsity game in 2018 is no longer interested in the moral victories that come with almosts and not quites.

UNE trailed for much of the game, finally taking a 31-27 lead when quarterback Jarrett Henault dove into the end zone from the 1 in the first minute of the fourth quarter. That came one play after Henault hit AJ DeFilio for a 22-yard completion on fourth-and-6.

The Nor’easters forced a turnover on the Bisons’ ensuing drive and looked to be marching toward a score to pad the lead before penalties doomed the drive. Given another chance, Gallaudet took the lead back when Nicholas Maccini completed a touchdown pass to Brandon Washington on fourth-and-8 from the UNE 20 with 7:59 left.

Those are the kinds of plays that become tattooed in the memory of good football teams. UNE players know they’ll be stewing over that missed opportunity and will learn from it. The Nor’easters trailed 10-0 in the first half and rallied to tie the game. They trailed 27-17 in the third quarter and rallied to take the lead.

In the past, keeping a game close would’ve been good enough. Not anymore.

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“It’s going to be a wake-up call for us, a reality check. We expect to win every game now. Not try to win. We expect to win,” said Jack Mahoney, a graduate student running back from Hudson, New Hampshire, who led the Nor’easters with 64 yards rushing Saturday. “We used to have to walk across campus to practice. This place wasn’t rocking on game days like it is now.”

Mahoney was there when the UNE football program began. He remembers when a close loss would’ve been reason to celebrate the team’s development.

Now, a close loss feels like a stumble backward.

“I remember our first win and how huge that was. That was such a big step. We’ve grown tremendously from that to where we are now,” said nose tackle Cameron Crocker, a graduate student from Boothbay who, like Mahoney, was there at the start of the UNE football journey.

That first victory came in the fourth game of the debut season in 2018, 44-42 over Curry. The Nor’easters went 2-7 that season, and 4-6 in 2019. The 2020 season was lost to the coronavirus pandemic, and last fall UNE went 4-5, just missing its first winning season.

The Nor’easters began this season with wins over Coast Guard and Bridgewater State. Like they said, wins are expected now.

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“It’s been a lot,” Crocker said, pausing to collect himself as five years of memories hit him like an opposing offensive lineman. “I remember looking back on film of us first year, we were all playing as freshmen. Now we’ve got some young guys coming in, and they’re going to be great. They’re continuing our legacy. The steps we’ve taken as a group are amazing.”

Mike Lichten is the only head coach the Nor’easters have had. He was coaching guys like Crocker and Mahoney when they had no games to play. The coach sees how far his team has come but can’t dwell on the past. He sees a team that needs to keep improving in order to get to where he feels it needs to be.

“It takes time to build a program and it takes patience. And only one of those things is under your control,” Lichten said.

After a bye week, UNE has a home game against Curry on Oct. 1, the first of six straight Commonwealth Coast Conference games. That stretch includes an Oct. 8 trip to Bangor to face in-state rival Husson. Saturday’s nonconference loss to Gallaudet doesn’t dent the Nor’easters’ goal of a conference title. If they remember how it feels to let a game they felt confident in winning get away, they can use it as a starting point.

That’s one of the lessons that comes with building a football program from scratch. Good teams don’t dwell on tough losses, but they certainly learn from them.


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