It was a familiar ending -- eerily similar, in fact -- for the Wofford football team.

Same opponent, Kennesaw State, as last year in the FCS playoffs. Nearly the same date, Nov. 30 instead of Dec. 1. Same kind of misty, rainy day, gloomier for one side than the other. Same evenly matched teams.

And once again it was a fourth-quarter fumble by the Terriers that turned the game and put the Owls on top for good.

Almost exactly one year after Kennesaw State eliminated Wofford, 13-10, in the second round of the playoffs, the Owls did it again in the first round Saturday with a 28-21 win at Gibbs Stadium.

Three plays into the fourth quarter with the score 14-14, sophomore slot receiver/running back D’mauriae VanCleave, one of the best new weapons in an evolving offense, was caught from behind and had the ball punched out. Kennesaw State recovered, started its own possession at the Wofford 20 and scored a touchdown on fourth-and-inches.

VanCleave doesn’t get caught from behind. Ever. But in this case, it was a finalist for national defensive player of the year, former national freshman of the year, linebacker Bryson Armstrong. And he made the play of the year for Kennesaw State, maybe the best play in program history, which dates only back to 2015.

"I was coming off the edge," Armstrong said. "It was a blitz play (on third-and-7 from the Wofford 47) and it flew away from me, so I was chasing back side and I started running down the line. I saw the ball-carrier holding it with his right arm, so I just threw a punch at it."

"He’s pretty modest," Kennesaw State head coach Brian Bohannon said of Armstrong. "He was playing with unbelievable effort. As he said, he was coming from the back side. If he isn’t playing hard, he would’ve never gotten there."

Wofford’s defense nearly pulled off what would have been a remarkable goal-line stand to keep it tied. Kennesaw State had first-and-goal at the 6, second-and-goal at the 1, third-and-goal at the 1 and fourth-and-goal from about two or three inches. Finally, quarterback Jonathan Murphy was able to get into the end zone for a 21-14 lead.

"You have to be a man down there," Wofford senior all-Southern Conference linebacker Jireh Wilson said. "The defensive line did a great job and got a great push. I feel like we could’ve made one more stop. You can talk about the big plays and, yes, the big plays can hurt you. But inches win football games. Inches lose football games. They won when it was inches time."

Wofford, meanwhile, was not able to take advantage of back-to-back turnovers by Kennesaw State in the second quarter. Mason Alstatt recovered a fumble to give the Terriers possession at the KSU 43-yard line. A penalty pushed them back and they had to punt. Wilson forced a fumble at midfield, but the Terriers gave it right back again on a fumble of their own.

Down by seven in the fourth quarter, Wofford went nowhere on two drives. Zero yards and a punt, and then, with only 5:57 left on the clock, four yards and a punt. Another penalty, this time a false start on third-and-1, forced the Terriers to kick it away from their own 14-yard line. KSU sealed victory on its next offensive snap as Murphy ran 61 yards for a touchdown to make it 28-14.

"We made some stupid penalties," Conklin said. "You can’t have it in these types of games. I felt like we always prided ourselves in being a line-of-scrimmage team and they won the line of scrimmage tonight. That can’t happen.

"…If you can turn those (second-quarter turnovers) into points, then you get into a situation when it’s 21-7 and if you can go up a couple of scores, it’s a different football game. We played sporadic, in my opinion. Why that showed up now, I’m not sure. But it did."

Wofford had 282 yards of total offense and despite being the second-best rushing team in the country, 323 yards per game, managed just 111 on the ground. The Terriers had touchdown drives of 73 yards on their first possession of the game and 75 yards to start the third quarter. But on eight other drives until producing a last-minute touchdown, Wofford had a total of 39 yards on eight possessions. The Terriers went three-and-out on seven of those eight.

"Championship football comes down to five or six big plays," Conklin said. "They created them and we didn’t, offensively. … I think the challenge for our football program, and we addressed this a little bit last year and we have to address it more now, is how do we become better? How do we get over that hump? There are a lot of things that need to be looked at."

That said, the last four years have been the most successful for Wofford since moving up to Division I and joining the Southern Conference. The senior class has won three straight league titles and made four straight trips to the playoffs with an overall record of 38-12 against FCS teams, 27-6 against conference opponents.

"Honestly, right now, I don’t even care about the stuff we’ve done," said senior quarterback Joe Newman, Southern Conference player of the year. "Tonight was just about making it to the next round. We didn’t do that. It’s irrelevant right now. The fact of the matter is that we didn’t do what we needed to do and our season is over."

Fellow senior Blake Morgan, who scored two touchdowns and was able to take a few more minutes than Newman had before facing the media, was also able to put everything in a different perspective.

"It’s definitely going to hurt. But at this point, you can only smile," Morgan said. "We’re here. We made it back to the playoffs (after an 0-2 start) for a fourth year in a row. I know this is not the way we wanted it to end, but we’ve done a lot."