Following last week’s nail-biting victory against Harvard, Brown football (2-1,1-0 Ivy) kept fans’ hearts racing in their game against Bryant this weekend. The Bears came up just short in another fourth-quarter thriller, falling 42-35 to Bryant (2-3, 0-1 CAA) at Richard Gouse Field on Saturday.
Brown Head Coach James Perry ’00 summed up the contest as a “really hard-fought game.”
“I don’t think there was a kid on the field that didn’t play his heart out today,” he continued. Perry said that while various aspects of play could be improved upon, “I’ve got a veteran group, so I think they’ll take it as a good challenge.”
Bryant jumped out to an early 7-0 lead, but the Bears responded with 14 unanswered points via two one-yard touchdown runs from Qwentin Brown ’26. Not to be outdone, Bryant scored the next 13 points to enter halftime with a 20-14 advantage.
Bruno scored the only points of the third quarter on a third one-yard run by Qwentin Brown, giving the Bears a slim 21-20 lead. But the Bulldogs answered early in the fourth with a 38-yard touchdown strike from quarterback Jarrett Guest to receiver Landon Ruggieri. This was a sign of things to come for a chaotic fourth quarter in which neither team seemed able to pull off a win.
With 12:35 left, Jake Willcox ’24.5 connected with running back Matt Childs ’28 for a 58-yard touchdown that put the Bears back up by one.
Less than two minutes later, Bryant responded by scoring on a 46-yard run by Dylan Kedzior and securing a two-point conversion, taking back the lead 35-28.
Childs’s second touchdown of the day, a 15-yard run, then tied the game at 35 with just 4:37 remaining and sent the home crowd into a frenzy.
But after Ruggieri beat two Brown defenders for a 30-yard touchdown on a 4th-and-4, the Bears couldn’t muster a final response in the last 1:45 of the game. On a pivotal fourth down on the ensuing drive, the Bulldogs’ pass rush got to Willcox, forcing an incompletion to seal the game.
“He played a heck of a game,” Perry said of Ruggieri, who finished with 10 catches for 190 yards and three touchdowns. “You go in knowing he’s a great player … and you do things to try to stop that schematically, but ultimately, you’ve got to play football.”
Childs had a standout performance despite the loss, leading Brown in both rushing, at 58 yards, and receiving, at 93 yards.
When asked about his performance, Childs stressed that the team’s success is paramount. “This game, I had some good things I hope to build off, but personally I would much rather win and have less yards than lose and play how I did today,” he said.
“He’s a great player,” Perry said of Childs. “He’s also a terrific learner and a very hard worker. What he’s doing is really remarkable … I know he played great, but he’s only getting better.”
The game pushed Brown’s record to 6-3 all-time against Bryant, having won the previous two matchups.
Bruno’s offense was a strength in the contest, spreading the ball to eight different receivers and four different running backs en route to a season-high 35 points. “That’s part of who we are,” Perry said. “Playing fast, distributing the ball that way … For us to reach our potential, we need (to do) that.”
Aside from Childs, four other Bears tallied at least three receptions and three others had over 30 rushing yards. Receiver Chason Barber ’26 racked up 70 yards on the day, while Mark Mahoney ’24.5 and Solomon Miller ’26 added 55 and 34 yards, respectively.
Despite the outcome, the team remains confident that they can build on this performance going into next Saturday’s game against a familiar foe: The University of Rhode Island (4-1, 2-0 CAA), who have taken six of the last seven match-ups with the Bears.
Brown will look to buck that trend Saturday in Kingston, and bounce back from what Perry called the “bad taste” left in the team’s mouth from this weekend’s loss.
“There’s no hanging your head in this deal,” Perry stressed. It’s “always tough to lose, especially a close one, but we’ll get back on that horse tomorrow and get better.”
“Wins are hard to come by, and every week is another chance to get better,” Childs said. “We already are moving on from this game mentally, and now all of our attention is focused on the new task at hand.”
Gus Bailey is a Sports reporter who also writes Arts & Culture reviews. He loves sports, music, and watching TV shows. When he's not at The Herald, you can find him playing pickup basketball, working on his podcast, or (most of the time) hanging with his friends.
