For most of Saturday afternoon, Faught Stadium was rocking. The vibe was festive, and the home team was rolling.

Visiting Rose-Hulman decided to break up the party, scoring three unanswered touchdowns in the final 6:07 to pull out a 35-34 victory over Franklin football.

"All the mistakes are mine," Franklin coach Mike Leonard said. "We didn't perform like we wanted to, obviously. Give Rose-Hulman credit — they never gave up, finished it strong."

The Grizzlies (2-3, 0-1 HCAC) took an early 14-0 lead with touchdowns on two of its first three drives. Trevor Winkles capped a game-opening 73-yard march by running in from 4 yards out just three and a half minutes in. Following a Haden Durnil interception, Franklin found the end zone again on an 8-yard scoring toss from Marshall Kmiecik to Jordan Fonda.

After the Engineers got on the board with a long TD pass, Franklin struck back with a scoring drive late in the half, one that was capped by an 11-yard throw from Kmiecik to Isaiah Miller with 35 seconds on the clock. The Grizzlies opened the third quarter with a defensive stop and then stretched their lead to 28-7 on a 4-yard Kmiecik keeper with 7:30 on the clock.

Kmiecik scored again from 1 yard out at the 11:04 mark of the fourth to make it 34-14, and the home team looked to be in good shape. But Rose-Hulman went to running back Jay Smith on all 10 plays of its next drive, and his 1-yard touchdown got the Engineers within 13. The Rose defense followed up with a stop, and a high snap on the punt led to a 20-yard loss, giving the visitors the ball on the Franklin 33 with four minutes to go. Smith's 5-yard TD run three plays later cut it to 34-28 with 3:14 left.

Franklin recovered the ensuing onside kick and picked up a first down, advancing to the Rose-Hulman 34 with two minutes to go. But the Engineers got some stops and used timeouts to preserve clock, and they got the ball back on their 33 after a 6-yard quick kick by Kmiecik with 1:34 remaining. An 11-play, 67-yard drive followed, one that ended with an 18-yard scoring pass to Smith and the go-ahead PAT from Trevor Saguto at :28 of the fourth.

Kmiecik got the Grizzlies into Rose territory with a 26-yard pass to Jace Mohr, but his last two throws before time expired fell incomplete.

"We've just got to clean a lot of things up," Leonard said. "Special teams, offense, defense. But we've got good guys with great attitudes, and we're going to live and learn from it and move on."

The Engineers finished with a razor-thin total offense edge of 403-396. Franklin gained all but 56 of its yards through the air, with four different receivers catching five passes each. Mohr (91 yards) and Jeremy Lee (88) led that group yardage-wise. Defensively, Drew Servies had a team-high 10 tackles and Brayden Baker added an interception.

Franklin will be at home again next Saturday afternoon (Oct. 18) against Manchester.