Dudley, Mass. - The only part of the Coast Guard Academy football team that wanted to win more than the offense Saturday was the defense.

And the only unit that was more anxious than the defense to prove itself after last week's shutout against No. 25 Hampden-Sydney was the offense.

"It's like we can officially put Hampden-Sydney behind us," Coast Guard quarterback Derek Victory said. "We said we weren't dwelling on it, but we were. I was talking to my mom and dad after the game (a 56-0 loss) about it. We had chances to score. It wasn't a win-loss thing. They're a fast team. But we got smoked."

Victory, a sophomore, responded Saturday by throwing four touchdown passes for the first time in his career and the defense survived a time-of-possession mismatch in the first half, beating Nichols 28-12 in the New England Football Conference opener for both teams.

Victory was 22-for-34 for 259 yards, throwing first-half touchdowns to Blake Thompson (27 yards) and Bryan Popp (12 yards) for a 14-0 lead before tossing a pair of fourth-quarter scoring strikes to Jordan Groff (5 and 54 yards) to put the game away.

Coast Guard (2-2) saw its lead narrowed to 14-6 on a 97-yard Nichols drive in the third quarter before Victory found Groff in the left-hand corner of the end zone to make it 21-6 with 12:20 remaining in the game.

The final pass to Groff came with 6:57 to play, with Victory rolling to his left and, on the run, finding Groff sprinting downfield.

And that was with an injury to Bears' starting center Kevin Postiglione, which forced the entire line to shuffle, with freshman Cory Tomasetti joining the ranks at right tackle and sophomore J.D. Dunaway sliding over to play center.

Still, Coast Guard gave up no sacks and gave Victory room to maneuver.

"The rollercoaster has been as bad as it's been (this week)," Coast Guard coach Bill George said. "All the credit goes to the senior leadership of the team. Our guys bounced back. That's a lot of emotion. Football's a very emotional game. I was very concerned. I was concerned all week."

On defense, junior strong safety Joe Rizzardi led the way with 16 tackles and, after having two interception returns for touchdowns last year against Nichols, had another pick against the Bison.

Nichols (1-3) had the ball for 21:55 in the first half, compared to 8:05 for the Bears, but still came up empty.

With 4:53 left in the half and Nichols driving to the Coast Guard 35, quarterback Quillian Respass was hit by Coast Guard's Joel Wyman just as he released a pass, causing it to wobble toward the end zone and a waiting Rizzardi.

Victory was then intercepted by Nichols' Connor Richard, with the Bison taking over at the 19. Nichols managed a first-and-goal at the 9 before Respass was hit for a 3-yard loss.

After a pair of rushes by Andre Rickerson, the Bison faced fourth-and-goal from the 3 and attempted a field goal, which missed wide right.

Trailing 14-6 in the third quarter, Nichols got the ball to the Coast Guard 16. Rizzardi broke up one pass by Respass, the Bison were guilty of a holding penalty on the next play and Respass threw an incompletion on fourth down.

Coast Guard scored on its next series to end the drama, getting a key 10-yard run from Jake Wawrzyniak on third-and-2 and a 41-yard run by Wawrzyniak three plays later to set up the touchdown.

"They run a nice offense, they have a lot of outside runs and I'm an outside defender," Rizzardi said of his success against this particular team. "… They spill to me, which is really a credit to Aaron (Black) and Joel for forcing them outside.

"We condition a lot. We're used to being on the field. We did our job."

Groff finished with eight catches for 100 yards for Coast Guard and senior Collis Brown had six catches for 80 yards, bringing him five catches shy of the career record of 159 held by Sam England (2006-09).

v.fulkerson@theday.com

Twitter: @vickieattheday