New London — Merchant Marine coach Mike Toop was in the midst of touting his own wide receiver, senior Joe Vitelli, as one of the best he's seen and, in part, the reason the Mariners went from being strictly a run-based triple-option team to a threat to pass, as well.

Toop stopped himself to include Coast Guard Academy's Justin Moffatt.

"I'm sure No. 8 (Moffatt) might say something about that," Toop said. "Every time they dropped back and threw the ball deep, they never missed."

It was the day 21-year head Coast Guard coach Bill George marked his retirement — "Coast Guard is losing a piece of itself with coach's retirement," former captain Jack Brandt wrote in one of many emails that came flying in following George's announcement earlier in the week.

It was also the day Merchant Marine, which won a 56-41 shootout Saturday over the Bears in the season finale for the Secretaries' Cup, and Coast Guard combined to score more points than in any other game they've played against each other.

The teams scored their 97 points on a combined 850 yards offense, 474 for Merchant Marine (6-3 overall, 5-2 in the New England Women's and Men's Athletic Conference) and 376 for Coast Guard (5-5, 2-5).

Merchant Marine quarterback Krystian Abbott ran the ball 32 times for 117 yards and a touchdown and was 10-for-15 passing for 181 yards, one touchdown and one interception.

Meanwhile, Coast Guard quarterback Ryan Jones was 12-for-27 passing for 311 yards, three touchdowns and one interception and ran 16 times for 36 yards and two more touchdowns. Moffatt finished with five catches for 149 yards and a touchdown.

It was a season-high point total for Coast Guard, which saw a number of injuries to its defensive line in recent weeks, estimated at eight Saturday by George.

"You've got to be proud of the whole thing," said George, who leaves with a program-record 75 coaching wins. "We had guys playing most of the game that were third string offensive linemen two weeks ago. I'm proud of everything. We made plays when we needed to. ... In the game of football, turnovers hurt you. We had two turnovers in a row, the kick return, that's just part of life."

Coast Guard, which received the ball first and scored on its third play, a 65-yard completion from Jones to Moffatt to start things off with a 7-0 lead, held a 14-13 edge with 13 minutes, 33 seconds to play in the second quarter.

But following a defensive stop by Coast Guard, its first of the day, disaster struck twice in rapid succession for the Bears, resulting in a pair of Merchant Marine touchdowns.

First, Jones was intercepted by Garrett Johnson, who returned it 31 yards for a Mariners' score to put them in front 20-14. Coast Guard fumbled the ensuing kickoff, resulting in an eventual fourth-down scoring pass, 18 yards from Abbott to Brian McGovern, to give Merchant Marine a 27-14 cushion.

Moffatt gave Coast Guard the momentum back to conclude the half. He returned a punt 66 yards to the Merchant Marine 8 and Jones punched in a touchdown from the 2 with 3:45 in the quarter to pull the Bears back within 27-21.

But Merchant Marine got the ball to start the second half and, aided by a Coast Guard facemask penalty on third down, the Mariners capped a 10-play drive with a 3-yard touchdown run from Abbott and a two-point conversion run by Alec Kiernan to push it to 35-21.

Coast Guard got within a touchdown one more time on a 9-yard pass from Jones to Damaso Jaime to make it 35-28 with 5:24 to play in the third, but the kickoff was returned 91 yards by Vitelli to turn things in the Mariners' favor one final time at 42-28.

Jaime finished with three catches for 88 yards and two touchdowns and running back Jon Wagner added a 1-yard touchdown run to complete the scoring following a 45-yard completion to Jaime at the 1. Linebacker Eugene Bizer led the Bears with 16 tackles and Brennan Dalgleish had interception to set up a touchdown.

"I can honestly say I left everything I had out there," Jones said. "I gave it everything I had, even though you always want to come out on top. It's just an honor to have these guys catch my passes."

Toop, meanwhile, in his 15th season at Merchant Marine, has coached this rivalry game for his entire career against George.

"He's a class act. Just watch his teams play," Toop said. "I'm going to tell you this, Bill was an All-American (at center) for a national championship team at Ithaca. He's as competitive a person as there is in this profession.

"In our programs (both U.S. service academies), we're not getting X number of kids for football like the big schools. Our win-loss records aren't what we'd like, but when these guys graduate, they're serving the mission of both academies."

Toop laughed, asked if there was ever any dislike between the rival coaches.

"But now," Toop said, "it's nothing but respect."

v.fulkerson@theday.com