Bowling Green defeated Ohio State 31-29 Saturday in a dramatic non-conference face-off in Columbus, Ohio.

BGSU needed a late try to win the game, and club president Frank Viancourt said that the tense nature of the clash was exactly what his team wants.

“This is the type of game we’ve been looking for,” said Viancourt. “It was a really tough game. We want to be able to go into the end of the season knowing how good we are, and to do that we have to play tough opponents.”

The game was back-and-forth all afternoon.

“We gave them some pretty easy tries off our mistakes,” said Viancourt, who was one of the five BGSU try-scorers on the day. “We’d turn the ball over and, credit to Ohio State, they’d make us pay immediately.”

Ohio State led 5-0 thanks to a Luke Hickey try. Then it was 7-5 Bowling Green thanks to Adam Regini. Ohio State replied with a try from Matt Stauder, but BGSU tied it up when flyhalf Nick Ross zipped over. Just before halftime, Danny Peyton capped off a nice counter off a turnover to put Ohio State up 19-12.

Viancourt’s try deadlocked the teams once more at 19-19, and then Falcons captain Alex Garnaut put Bowling Green up for the first time since the early going, 26-19. But Ohio State tied it up, this time Santino Cua racing in under the posts, and then took the lead 29-26 with a penalty from Ina Hildebrandt. But there was still time for one more attack.

“He had a game plan, and we decided to play it slow and grind it out down to their line,” said Viancourt. “We got an opportunity with a scrum, and we scored from there.”

After a series of phases, Ross saw the OSU defense coming up fast. He popped a nicely-weighted chip kick over the onrushing Buckeyes and it rolled tantalizingly toward the tryline. OSU was there to cover, but nudged the ball forward. From the ensuing scrum, the Falcons sent hands out to center Ryan Steinmetz, who had just come on for an injury substitution. Despite no warmup, Steinmetz sent a perfect long pass out to Regini at fullback, and he drew his man before setting up wing Cole Shaffer, who ran the final 20 meters for the game-winner in the corner.

“We haven’t had too many games like this and I think we showed that we can be disciplined, and stick to our system even when we are under pressure,” said Viancourt, whose try tied the game at 19-19 early in the second half. “Especially in the second half, we played our system and didn’t allow a close game to shake us.”

Scrumhalf Mitch Sora and flyhalf Nick Ross worked seamlessly through the day and kept the offense moving for BGSU, while lock and captain Alex Garnaut not only scored a key try, but he made several important line breaks that led to scores.