Yale Answers an Early 14-point Hole and Beats Merrimack 41-24
After Merrimack went up 21-7, Yale outscored it 34-3. That is the game, and it took a while to get going.
Yale scored first on a 9-yard Dante Reno pass to Jaxton Santiago, and Merrimack tied it 7-7 less than a minute later on a 79-yard AJ Hairston Jr pass to Kenyon Massey. Will Claude then returned an interception 75 yards for a touchdown, and Hairston hit Dennis Morgan from 40 yards early in the second quarter to make it 21-7. Merrimack had three touchdowns by the 7:14 mark of the second quarter, and one of them came from its defense.
Then Yale took over. Noah Piper kicked a 37-yard field goal, and Reno threw 10 yards to Santiago with 1:56 left in the half, 21-17 at the break. Graham Smith caught a 2-yard Reno pass early in the third for a 24-21 lead, and after Guytano Bartolomeo's 25-yard field goal tied it at 24-24, Yale never gave it back. Garon Kemp caught a 20-yarder to open the fourth, Piper kicked a 38-yarder, and Hugo Djeumeni Kemeni ran in from 9 yards with 4:07 left to close it at 41-24.
Yale had 476 yards to Merrimack's 322, and Merrimack lost two fumbles. Yale threw the interception that went back for six, so the early hole was partly its own doing. Yale is 2-1. Merrimack is 2-3.
For fantasy, Reno's four touchdown passes made him the top scorer at 39.8, though that is below the 47.4 he had in his previous game.