With the 15th season of Monmouth football kicking off this August, www.GoMUHawks.com will revisit the 15 greatest football victories of the past 14 years, with one game released each week until the Hawks open the season against Maine on Sept. 1, 2007.
HAWKS HOLD OFF ROBERT MORRIS TO TAKE OVER FIRST PLACE IN NEC
MOON TOWNSHIP, Pa. ? The Monmouth University football team outlasted Robert Morris in a classic battle between two perennial Northeast Conference powers to come away with a 27-26 victory at Moon Stadium on October 24, 1998, taking over sole possession of first place in the league in the process.
After the Colonials scored a touchdown to cut the lead to cut the single point, they missed the extra point with 5:51 left in the fourth quarter and Monmouth iced the game by going on a 12-play, 70-yard drive that took up the remaining time and the Hawks came away with the win. With the triumph, the Hawks improve to 2-0 in league, and they also handed Robert Morris their first-ever NEC loss at Moon Stadium.
“This Robert Morris game was not only exciting, but it was a classic battle between the two NEC schools,” said Monmouth skipper Kevin Callahan. “Getting the win on the road gave our team a boost and positioned us to win our second NEC Championship.”
“That Robert Morris team was very good, they had two guys in (former Philadelphia Eagle and current Cleveland Brown) Hank Fraley and Tim Levcik that played in the National Football League, and they had a pretty good tradition of winning,” said former Monmouth standout Cornell Key. “We knew that if we played together as a team and executed on all three phases of the game that we could win. We were an aggressive team that kept making plays in that game.”
The Colonials Fred Parker scored on a 33-yard run to cut the MU lead to 27-26, but Robert Morris was penalized 15 yards for excessive celebration following the touchdown and Chris Longo's 28-yard extra point sailed wide left. The Hawks, behind tailback Chris Reed, ran out the clock to end the contest. Reed, who was named NEC Offensive Player of the Week, ran 32 times for 139 yards on the day and scored three rushing touchdowns. He had several pivotal carries in the closing minutes, including a key third down conversion to allow the Blue and White to maintain possession.
In the game, Reed broke the Monmouth single-season scoring record at the time with his 15th touchdown (90 points). The Hawks' win over the Colonials was particularly solid as MU did not commit a turnover in the win.
Cornell Key led the Monmouth defense with seven tackles, including four solo stops and two tackles for loss, to go along with two sacks and an interception.
“The play was kind of a fluke,” recollected Key about his interception. “Their quarterback dropped back to pass and I batted the ball into the air and was able to pick it off. That play was huge because it took away their momentum.”
Monmouth wide receiver Anthony Galella also set a then Monmouth single-season record for receiving yards after grabbing three passes for 51 yards. That total gave Galella 728 receiving yards, breaking the previous mark of 696, set by Will Holder in 1995.
Robert Morris showcased a quick strike offensive attack when quarterback Tim Levcik connected with wide receiver James Kirk on a 43-yard touchdown strike to give the Colonials a 7-0 lead with 14:09 left in the first quarter. The RMU scoring drive took all of two plays and covered 64 yards in 51 seconds to give the hosts the early lead.
MU tied the game, and then took the lead, on a pair of Reed one-yard rushing scores. The first score capped off a five-play drive to knot the game at 7-7 with 11:33 left in the first quarter. On the ensuing kickoff, MU's Aaron Edwards forced Robert Morris's Antoine Lee to fumble and the Hawks Rich Kenny recovered the loose ball at the Colonial one-yard line. Reed rumbled in from a yard out to give the Hawks a 14-7 lead a mere 18 seconds after tying the game.
Levcik would toss his second touchdown of the game when he found Fred Parker from four yards out, but the extra point failed, and MU held a slim 14-13 lead at the conclusion of the opening stanza.
Reed would add his third rushing touchdown of the first half on the first play of the second quarter as he scored from two yards out to give MU a 20-13 lead with the extra point attempt being blocked.
The two teams would go scoreless for the rest of the first half, but MU would be the first to strike after halftime as quarterback John DiPasquale hit Mike Osborne for a 31-yard touchdown pass to cap an 11-play, 80-yard drive and give the Hawks a 27-13 lead.
The Colonials would add a rushing touchdown before Parker's late score set up the game's dramatic ending with MU running out the clock to end the game.
“That team probably had the best camaraderie of any I've ever been on,” recalled Key. “We were all friends and we laid it on the line for each other each week. I've been on better teams with more talent, but that weren't as close as this team.”
That season, the Hawks would go on to share the NEC title with the Colonials, something the two teams also did in 1996. From 1996-2001, Robert Morris went 32-2 in NEC play, winning or sharing the conference title five times in that span.
