New London - It was a disappointing season opener, rallying to pull within a touchdown in the third quarter only to give up 24 unanswered points to finish the game, fueled by four straight second-half turnovers.

"It was disappointing in the fact we're a little bit older and made young mistakes," Coast Guard Academy football coach Bill George said.

"But we're going to get better. And that's always one word that can get changed. We can take 'disappointment' and say we never said it."

St. Lawrence muscled past Coast Guard on Saturday 45-14, running 93 offensive plays to 47 for the Bears and outgaining them 458-141. St. Lawrence had possession of the ball for 45 minutes, 27 seconds.

Coast Guard scored on a 1-yard touchdown run by Jake Wawrzyniak with 9:27 to go in the third quarter to pull within 21-14, getting a pair of 20-plus yard catches on the drive from sophomore Bryan Popp.

The Bears then got a stop on defense, giving them the ball with the momentum. On the their first play from scrimmage, however, from their own 28, they tried a little razzle-dazzle and the halfback option pass from Wawrzyniak was intercepted by Leondre Simmon.

The Bears proceeded to turn the ball over on three more possessions in a row, two interceptions by quarterback Derek Victory (9-for-27, 67 yards) and a fumbled kickoff.

Meanwhile, St. Lawrence quarterback Mike Lefflbine was 23-for-36 for 255 yards and two touchdowns, while running back Maurice Irby finished with 22 carries for 75 yards and three touchdowns.

The Saints capitalized, scoring after each Coast Guard turnover.

"We kind of got discouraged as a team," said Coast Guard cornerback Tony Buzzini, who provided one of the Bears' highlights with a 50-yard interception return. "It was disappointing, but we need to brush that off and start thinking about Merchant Marine (next week's opponent) right now.

"We definitely got worn down, but we can't use it as an excuse. Next week we have to have better conditioning, more drive. ... We need to take advantage of those momentum swings."

Popp finished with three catches for 41 yards and preseason All-American Collis Brown, who was injured in the preseason and just got cleared to practice this week, had three for 21 yards.

Joe Rizzardi led the defense with 10 tackles and Aaron Black, a preseason All-American at defensive end, had eight tackles, including the Bears' only sack.

Coast Guard meets rival Merchant Marine next week at home in the annual battle for the Secretaries' Cup.

"I'm going to go design this practice off all the film's weaknesses," George said of how to address the loss. "If it's tackling, we're going to practice tackling; if it's blocking and picking up the twist, we're going to practice picking up the twist; if it's dropping balls, we're going to do catching drills.

"We're going to go back and look at film and put it all through a meat grinder and see how it comes out."

v.fulkerson@theday.com

Twitter: @vickieattheday