New London — Most of the big things went right for the Coast Guard Academy football team, including the first career start for freshman quarterback Joe Armentrout, who threw for 291 yards and a touchdown, leading the Bears up and down the field all day Saturday.

But the little things were agonizing in Coast Guard's 21-7 loss to MIT.

Two blocked field goal attempts. Two fumbles. Two snaps to Armentrout when he wasn't looking. The Bears were 0-for-4 on fourth down conversion opportunities. They got to the red zone — inside the 20-yard line — five times and only scored once despite being so tantalizingly close.

"I think it was a case of we moved the ball between the 20s and all of the sudden we get down there and we just stall out," Coast Guard coach C.C. Grant said. "Part of it was execution. Part of it was ... to be honest with you I'm kind of baffled right now. I don't know what the other part was."

"I think that's another one of those that we chalk up as a loss but we're going to look back and say we should have won that game," Coast Guard senior wide receiver Damaso Jaime said. "Just little timely mistakes. We looked good today. We had a lot of great days of practice and we just come out and we didn't execute on a few plays and those few plays are what makes the game go the other way."

It was the fifth straight loss for Coast Guard, 2-6 overall, 0-4 in the New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference, including back-to-back blowouts against league favorites Springfield (60-0) and Catholic (30-7).

Against MIT, the defense was charged with stopping an Engineers team which beat Norwich a week ago by a 48-37 margin, scoring the game's final 27 points. MIT quarterback Oakley Dehning had 196 yards passing and four touchdowns in that one and 64 rushing yards in being named the Division II/III Gold Helmet recipient.

On Saturday, Coast Guard held Dehning to 7-for-15 passing for 67 yards and seven carries for 17 yards.

The Bears outgained MIT in the first quarter 112-7.

It was on Coast Guard's first drive of the game, however, on fourth-and-1 at the MIT 31-yard-line, that the Bears snapped the ball for the first time before Armentrout was ready. The ball ricocheted off his leg, with Coast Guard turning the ball over on downs.

The next series resulted in Coast Guard getting a field goal blocked after driving all the way to the Engineers' 10-yard line and on a third trip deep into MIT territory, Armentrout's pass was incomplete on fourth-and-7 from the 24. The Bears then punted twice on fourth-and-1.

MIT finally scored first with 20 seconds to go in the half on a 40-yard touchdown pass from Dehning to Dennis Gastel and the Engineers scored again to start the second half on a 10-yard scoring run by Brady Klein, making it 14-0.

Coast Guard responded though, getting a 12-yard touchdown pass from Armentrout, who replaced junior Tafari Wall at quarterback this week after Wall started the first seven games of the season. Armentrout's target was none other than the 6-foot-4 Wall, who made the grab in the back left corner of the end zone and celebrated all the way back to the bench, sparking the Bears.

"If you were going to tell me in August that Tafari would have a touchdown on a day and I wouldn't, I wouldn't believe you," said Jaime, who finished with three catches for 107 yards. "I'm glad for him. He's been putting in more work than anyone on the team. It's great to see him take that the right way and keep working and do whatever he can to help the team succeed."

The defense held, keeping it within one score, with linebacker Connor Healy and linemen Andrew Schad and Jonathan Rahmes hitting the Engineers for losses to force them to punt the ball back to the Bears one last time with 3:08 to play.

Coast Guard took over the ball at its own 7, however, and fumbled on the second play with MIT taking over at the 5, leading to Klein's second touchdown of the game.

"They played better the fourth quarter than we did and that was probably the difference in the game," Grant said.

Armentrout was 19-for-37 for 291 yards and ran 14 times for 36 yards. Jaime caught two deep throws down the right sideline from the freshman quarterback and Jacob Wagner had five catches for 71 yards. Free safety Logan Morris led the defense with nine tackles.

MIT (4-3, 2-2) did not turn the ball over.

v.fulkerson@theday.com