Tusk to Tusk: Mammoths Topple Jumbos 30-14

It was a deceptively hot September day, the last embers of summer smoldering beneath a patchwork of autumn clouds. Lehrman Stadium always looks most like itself on these fall afternoons, when the light turns the turf into a lacquered green and the breeze carries a faint rustle from the pines. On a day like this, everything feels right.

Perhaps that’s how Amherst football felt, too, as they warmed up for just their second home game of the season: shoulder pads sighing, athletic tape snapping, and helmets clattering in a steady, percussive rhythm.

It’s been a rough couple of years for the Mammoths. In 2024, the team went 2-7, while in 2023, they went 4-5. Two weeks ago, they didn’t look much better, falling to Bates — the scrappy, grind-it-out Bobcats — for only the second time since 2000.

Last week, though, things began to change. The Mammoths downed Hamilton 23-13, and quarterback Marek Hill ’28 looked like a revelation, completing 25 of 34 passes (73.5%) for 236 yards and two touchdowns without a pick, then gashing Hamilton for 109 more on nine carries — including a 57-yard jailbreak and a rushing score. He looked unhurried and inevitable, the kind of calm that makes an offense breathe.

Saturday’s game against Tufts, then, felt like a barometer for the 1-1 Mammoths — a measure of what was real. The undefeated Jumbos are truthtellers, transparent and unsentimental. They play a lot of man coverage, the press-and-pester kind that dares you to win outside: corners up in your jersey, a safety lurking as a low robber, linebackers mugging the A-gaps, and green-dogging the back if he stays in. They’ll spin a safety late, set a spy on a mobile quarterback, keep their edges tight, and make every throw land on a dime. They do not mess around.   

That being said, none of that seemed to matter when Amherst halfback Demitrius Smith ’27 all but instantly opened the scoring, maneuvering around defenders for a 38-yard touchdown to give the Mammoths an early 7-0 lead. “It was all my offensive line,” he said. “It’s their mindset, it’s their work ethic — all week we’ve been preaching for them to be dominant … all credit up front.”

Four drives later, Amherst struck again — this time through the air — as Hill found Cato Legaspi ’26 for a seven-yard score. By quarter’s end, the Mammoths found themselves up 14-0 — and perhaps more importantly — full of hope.

Soon after, punter Efe Ilgar ’29 pinned Tufts at their own one-yard line, and two plays later, linebacker Ty Kazanowsky ’27 triggered downhill, knifed through the interior, and dropped Tufts running back Christian Shapiro for a safety. The whistle cut clean through the heat — two fingers raised — and the home fans let loose. “It was a great moment for us,” Kazanowsky said. “I have to thank my defensive tackle, Josh Kuczynski [’28], who opened the hole up for me.”

Ten seconds later — crowd still buzzing — the offense moved with a clean, sudden tempo. Hill almost immediately found Carter Jung ’26 streaking deep — completing a nearly 70-yard strike that flipped the field and dropped Amherst into the red zone. “Marek made a great read,” Jung said. “They went Cover 3 robber, the safety rolled down, and I ran a post. I trusted it, and he put a great ball on me.” Two snaps later, Hill found Legaspi again for a touchdown, stretching the lead to 23.

“It was an excellent play call,” Legaspi said. “All I had to do was secure the catch and dive for the pylon.”

From there, Amherst slowed it down, bleeding the quarter with an 11‑play, 80‑yard drive. Hill took what the defense would surrender and kept the tempo steady — 5-for-7 for 40 on the drive — while the backs churned and the chains ticked forward. With 20 seconds left, he zipped an eight‑yard pass to Jung for a touchdown, giving the Mammoths a thunderous 30-0 advantage before halftime.

Even so, Amherst has not been a good second-half football team. They blew a 23-7 lead against Bates in week one, turning the ball over twice down the stretch, and against Hamilton, they allowed 13 points while generating only 33 yards of offense in the fourth quarter.

The second half on Saturday was no different. Amherst came out of the break a half-step slow, and Tufts seized it, stitching together an 11‑play, 84‑yard touchdown drive that appeared deliberate and inevitable. “Our motto is always execute, be physical, and finish,” Smith said. “We have to do better on the finish part.”

After Amherst’s nearly five-minute, eight-play drive ended in an interception at the Tufts 45-yard line, the Jumbos again marched down the field and scored, narrowing Amherst’s lead to just 16.

The visitors could sense a Mammoth off-balance, and indeed, after another Amherst punt, Tufts tightened their splits, quickened their cadence, and went right at the heart of an anxious defense. Quarterback Justin Keller found Henry Fleckner for five, Matt Greco for two, and then hit Jack Elliott for six — a first down. He then scrambled for eight, gave it to Shapiro for six, connected with Elliott for 13 more, and then Fleckner to reach the nine-yard line. All of a sudden, things were falling into place.

And yet — everything slowed. On second and four, a pass intended for Greco fell incomplete. On third down, Keller looked for daylight, but Jackson Duncan ’27 was there, blanketing the route and swatting the ball away. Suddenly, it was fourth down — and the Jumbos decided to go for it. Keller kept it himself on a desperate scramble, but Luke Harmon ’26 closed in, wrapping him up just two yards short of the line to gain.

The drive, built on quick strikes and forward momentum, now stuttered and died at the Mammoth seven. Amherst’s defense bent, but here, at last, would not break.

“It’s all about the little things — making them feel you until the end,” star linebacker Carson Skotak ’27 said. “We bring it every day precisely for these moments.”

After Tufts failed to score on their next two possessions, the game was all but over. In the blink of an eye, the Mammoths had toppled the Jumbos — tusk to tusk, trunk to trunk — final score: 30-14.

In truth, every season has its inflection points, moments which mark, for better or worse, the overall trajectory of a long season. While these moments are few and far between, and this season is still in its infancy, there’s a chance that when fans look back, perhaps two or three years from now, it will be this game — this scoreline — and this deceptively hot September day that they’ll remember. 

In the end, Hill finished the game 18-of-29 for 211 yards with three touchdowns and one interception, adding 26 yards on seven carries. Jung was his big-play outlet, hauling in six passes for 120 yards and a score, while Smith steadied the run game with 78 yards on 12 carries and a touchdown. On defense, Harmon and Skotak paced the Mammoths with nine tackles apiece, while Izaiah Gallagher ’29 collected 1.5 sacks. 

The Mammoths’ journey continues in Middlebury next Saturday, where they’ll clash with the Panthers at 1 p.m.