WILLIAMSTOWN — The Amherst College football team did all it could do Saturday afternoon.
“A lot of people have been talking about would have, should have, this, this. I said guys, it doesn’t matter,” Amherst coach E.J. Mills said after the Mammoths knocked off their biggest rivals in the 140th edition of the Biggest Little Game in America. “I think our kids were pretty grounded on the fact that nothing’s good if we don’t win.”
The Mammoths took to Farley-Lamb Field with the goal of sharing a NESCAC championship and possibly earning the conference’s first-ever bid to the NCAA Division III football tournament.
A late fourth-quarter touchdown pass from Marek Hall to Christian Moore helped Amherst clinch a three-way co-championship with a 16-7 win.
The win, coupled with Wesleyan’s 27-20 victory over Trinity in Hartford, Conn., meant that Amherst, Wesleyan and Trinity all finished 8-1 and shared the NESCAC title. It was the first three-way championship since Amherst, Wesleyan and Middlebury all finished 7-1 back in 2013.
“We were totally focused on trying to get the ‘W,’ knowing that was going to be really challenging,” Mills said after the players, coaches and fans celebrated and posed for photos with a NESCAC championship trophy. “Once you win, then we get part of the championship and then we’re going to see what happens at 5:30.”
What happened at 5:30 was that Trinity received the NESCAC automatic berth to the 40-team tournament.
According a release from NESCAC “since all three teams posted identical 8-1 records, the teams were compared head-to-head, with the teams finishing 1-1 against each other. After exhausting the remaining tie-breaking procedures, the teams remained tied and a random action was needed to determine the automatic qualifier.”
Depending on how things play out in Division III conferences across the nation, Trinity might not be the only NESCAC team a field with 28 automatic qualifiers and 12 at-large teams. According to the NCAA’s NPI rating system, Trinity was No. 12 in the nation, with Amherst 32nd and Wesleyan 37th.
It was also the first time that the Mammoths won back-to-back games against Williams since they won five straight from 2011-15. And it was the first time Amherst had won in Williamstown since 2015.
“It’s been a long time since we won up here,” Mills said after the game. “I’m just really happy for our guys. To be be NESCAC champs, at least part of it, we’re really excited about it.”
Scoreless after one quarter, the teams traded touchdowns in the second. Zach Curtin scored on a 7-yard run early in the second quarter for Amherst, while Matt Bott’s 3-yard run late in the second ended a 13-play, 75-yard drive and sent the game into halftime tied.
After a Hudson Fulcher-Melendy 29-yard field goal late in the third quarter, Williams trailed 10-7 and had just gone three-and-out. A 40-yard Leonardo Maiuolo punt gave Amherst the ball on the Williams 45. The Williams defense held the Mammoths shy of the line to gain on three plays, but on fourth down Amherst quarterback Marek Hill threw underneath the coverage to Max Alexander for five yards and a first down.
Two running plays gained nothing. Then on third down, Hill threw to the left sideline where Alexander somehow managed to make a one-handed catch and keep one foot inbounds for a 15-yard gain and a first down.
Three plays later, a play that – depending on which shade of purple one was wearing – will long be debated.
Hill, who was under a ton of pressure the whole game, had to roll to his right and threw the ball into the end zone for Christian Moore. Williams cornerback Holden Gering stepped in front of the receiver in the end zone and appeared to intercept the ball. But Moore got his hands on it too, and the officials ruled joint possession. By rule, that tie goes to the offense and it was a touchdown.
“We’re all just trying to earn one more week with our brothers,” said Hill, who finished 17 for 27 for 170 yards and a touchdown. “We had a chance to go the playoffs if we could win this game. We took care of our business. We took care of our part.”
The Mammoths will find out Sunday at 5 p.m., when the NCAA Division III football selection show will stream on NCAA.com
