TROY, N.Y. - The Dickinson football two scored just two plays into the game, but were kept off the board the rest of the afternoon as the 20th-ranked Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Engineers used two second quarter scores to pick up a 14-7 season opening win at East Campus Stadium on Saturday.

Princeton Douglass scampered 40 yards on the opening kickoff to give the Red and White great starting field position on the DC40. New quarterback Presley Egbers rushed for three yards, before hooking up with Bryce Peterson for a 57-yard touchdown strike on his first pass as a Devil. Raleigh Wynot added the extra point and just over a minute in it was 7-0. 

RPI took their opening march to the DC31 after Matt Petercuskie found D.J. Palmer for 33 yards. However, on the ensuing play Aleksander Zivanovic picked off the Petercuskie pass to thwart the drive. On the second play of the next drive Egbers hit Leon Friebel for 16 (DC31). Then, it became the Diante Ball show for the following four plays as he ran three times and caught a pass to advance the rock to the RPI44. The DC drive would then stall out leading to a Matt Maiona punt. 

Dickinson began their final possession of the first at their own 29 and moved out to the RPI49 thanks to a pair of Egbers rushes and one carry for Ball which ended the quarter. Once again though the Devils were unable to continue pushing towards the endzone as they had to kick.    

RPI would get on the board early in the second as a high snap over the punter Maiona's head gave the Engineers a first-and-ten at the DC20. From there five straight rushes brought the home side into the endzone as Dylan Burnett plunged in from five yards out. Aleksandar Maric added the kick to tie the score. After a Dickinson three-and-out RPI used the air to take a 14-7 advantage when Petercuskie found Gil Goldsmith for a 52-yard score with 5:49 left in the half. Both sides possessed the ball two more times in the half, but neither could do much.

The first three drives of the second half did not see a first down as they all resulted in three-and-outs. DC began a drive with 10:59 to go in the third with Maiona under center as Egbers was forced to leave the game. A completion to Douglass put the ball on the RPI29, but a sack and an unsportsmanlike penalty forced the Devils to punt instead of having a chance at points. The Red and White worked their way into Engineer territory with their final drive of the frame with Maiona hooking up with Johnny Knight and Douglass to go along with two runs by Ball to advance down to the home 39. Unfortunately, a holding penalty took the Red and White out of scoring reach and led to another kick sending the game to the fourth.

In the final period the Devils never crossed into RPI territory and the Engineers had one chance inside the redzone after a 45-yard punt return brought it down to the DC1, but two holding penalties and a sack by Anton Jacobs on fourth down kept things at 14-7 for the final.

Up Next
The Red and White face another stiff test next Saturday when they head to Allentown for a date with No. 11 Muhlenberg College at 1 pm in the Centennial Conference opener.  

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