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ScoringLive staffSeptember 18, 2021, 10:45pm
MANOA — Nick Starkel passed for 235 yards and two touchdowns to help San Jose State to a 17-13 win over Hawaii in a Mountain West Conference football game at the Clarence T.C. Ching Athletic Complex Saturday night.
The Spartans (2-1 overall, 1-0 Mountain West) rallied from a first-quarter touchdown deficit to record its second win over the Rainbow Warriors (1-3, 0-1) in as many seasons.
Starkel completed 23 of his 50 pass attempts and was intercepted once. His 13-yard touchdown pass to Isaiah Hamilton tied it at 7-apiece at the 5:26 mark of the second quarter. He connected with Jeremiah Braddock on a 1-yard scoring strike with 2:23 left in the first half to give San Jose State the lead for good.
Hawaii got a pair of field goals from Matthew Shipley in the third quarter to pull within 14-13, but San Jose State added an insurance score on Matt Mercurio's 26-yard field goal with 1:19 remaining in the game.
The Rainbow Warriors had a chance to win it on the final play of the game, but quarterback Chevan Cordeiro's pass fell incomplete out of the back of the end zone as time expired.
"We just came up a few plays short and that game basically came down to one play," Hawaii coach Todd Graham said.
Calvin Turner's 1-yard touchdown run gave UH its only lead and opened the scoring with 3:29 to play in the opening quarter. It capped a 10-play, 71-yard drive that took four minutes and 32 seconds off the clock.
Turner finished with 121 all-purpose yards, but the Rainbow Warriors struggled to sustain drives; they went three-and-out six times and punted 11 times.
Cordeiro completed 18 of his 39 pass attempts for 242 yards without an interception. His favorite target was Nick Mardner, who finished with five catches for 97 yards. Dae Dae Hunter was the leading rusher for UH with 15 carries for 51 yards.
"Everyone's sick. I mean, this was a close game (against) a good opponent in our conference," Cordeiro said. "I mean, we needed this win, but it is what it is, we can't dwell on it. We just gotta learn from it and bounce back."
DJuan Matthews and Khoury Bethley had six tackles apiece to lead the UH defense. Bethley also recorded two tackles for loss, one sack and a pass break-up.
Hawaii finished with 369 yards of total offense to 291 for San Jose State.
The Spartans led at halftime, 14-7.
"I'm really proud of our guys' effort," Graham said. "That was a tough one, but I'm really proud of the effort that our guys made. (I) thought the whole game (that) we were gonna win, but that one's tough to swallow because I felt like we were the better team and we didn't make the plays we needed to."
With its victory, San Jose State retained the Dick Tomey Legacy Trophy.
UH still leads the all-time series against SJSU, 22-21-1. The teams have met every year since 1996, except for the 2012 season.
The Spartans hold a 15-13 advantage over the Rainbow Warriors in games played in Honolulu. The visiting team has won seven of the last nine meetings and 10 of the last 14 in the series.
San Jose State has now won its last nine games in Mountain West Conference play. It claimed its first MW championship in 2020; its last loss in league play came on Nov. 23, 2019 at UNLV (38-35).
It was the lowest scoring meeting between the teams since a 13-0 Hawaii win over SJSU in 2014.
UH linebacker Darius Muasau sat out the first half of Saturday's game due to a targeting penalty he incurred in the second half of last week's loss at Oregon State.
The Rainbow Warriors saw their streak of three consecutive wins in conference openers come to an end.
Hawaii was 4 of 18 on third-down conversions and was hampered by several dropped passes.
"We had our opportunities and we didn't get it done, but that was a tough one, that was a really, really tough one because I really thought the whole time that we were gonna win," Graham said.
UH will visit New Mexico State next Saturday, before it returns home to host Fresno State — which upset nationally-ranked UCLA Saturday — on Oct. 2.
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