WORCESTER, Mass. – Senior tailback
Domenic Cozier carried the ball 23 times for 161 yards and two touchdowns to lead the Holy Cross football team to a 24-0 victory over Georgetown at Fitton Field. With the victory, the Crusaders claimed an outright Patriot League championship, and earned the conference's automatic bid to the 2019 NCAA football championship subdivision playoffs. Holy Cross improves to 7-5 overall and 5-1 in the Patriot League with the win, while the Hoyas finish the season at 5-6 overall and 1-5 in the conference.
The Crusaders will now advance to the NCAA playoffs for only the third time in school history, with the only previous appearances coming in 1983 and 2009. In addition, Holy Cross wins the Patriot League title for the seventh time in school history.
The Crusader defense turned in one of its top performances of the season, holding Georgetown to just 233 total yards and causing four turnovers while posting its first shutout of the year. On the offensive side of the ball, Holy Cross put up 339 total yards while giving the ball away only once.
The game was scoreless for the majority of the first half, until Cozier found the end zone on a 15-yard run with 2:08 remaining in the second quarter. Then just before the break, freshman linebacker
Jacob Dobbs intercepted a pass and returned it 56 yards for a touchdown to make the score 14-0 at halftime.
After a scoreless third quarter, sophomore placekicker
Derek Ng booted a 21-yard field goal early in the fourth to make the score 17-0. Cozier then put the game away with a 20-yard touchdown run with 3:38 left to play.
Dobbs finished the afternoon with seven tackles, a sack, two tackles for loss and two interceptions, while senior defensive back
Corey Stefanik posted 10 tackles with one tackle for loss. Junior quarterback
Connor Degenhardt hit on 10 of 14 passes for 144 yards, while freshman wide receiver
Ayir Asante had a team-high six catches for 78 yards.
Holy Cross returns to action next week in the NCAA FCS playoffs. The announcement of the bracket will be made at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 24, live on ESPNU.
BEYOND THE BOX SCORE:
• Holy Cross has now won seven Patriot League championships in its history, all of them outright (previous titles came in in 1986, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1991 and 2009).
• The Crusaders' five Patriot League victories this year are tied for the most in school history, matching the mark of the 1990 (5-0), 1991 (5-0), 2008 (5-1) and 2009 (5-1) teams.
• Cozier has now rushed for 1,050 yards this season and 2,128 yards in his collegiate career. He became just the fifth player in school history to rush for over 1,000 yards in a single season, and now ranks eighth all-time at Holy Cross in career rushing yards.
• Following the game, Holy Cross honored the 20 members of its senior class for their contributions to the program over the last four years.
