NORTH ANDOVER, Mass. — Paxton Scott couldn’t watch.

The wide receiver sat next to offensive lineman Kyle Brown as sophomore kicker Owen Zalc lined up his eventual game-winning field goal kick, sealing Dartmouth’s 16-14 come-from-behind victory over Merrimack on Saturday at Duane Stadium.

The pair of fifth-years stared at an iPad, a ritual rooted in superstition at this point, Scott explained. The Texan said he hasn’t watched any of Zalc’s game-clinching field goals, now up to three after Saturday’s heroics.

“I just do the same thing I do every time,” Zalc said of his mental approach. “I’m going to get good protection. I know that the snap’s going to be there, the hold’s going to be there. I just gotta kick it.”

Down a single point with 2 minutes, 59 seconds left in the fourth quarter, Dartmouth engineered a 62-yard drive to put Zalc — who had was successful on two of his three previous field goals on the day, including a career-long from 50 yards out — well inside his range.

Aside from three blocked field goals in 2023, Zalc’s only other two career misses have come from beyond 50 yards, including one against the Warriors in the third quarter on Saturday.

Alluding to the North Carolina native’s near automatic status from 49 yards and in, Scott acknowledged that such a skill “takes a little bit of pressure off the playcalling.”

“We’re not trying to force as much,” Scott said of Dartmouth’s final drive of the game. “Everyone is there to do their job. … Everyone in the huddle was calm, very collected, and just marched down the field.”

When Zalc’s 32-yard boot sailed through the uprights with three ticks left on the clock, the Big Green could breathe a sigh of relief.

“I said, ‘Good thing about football is (it has) two halves,’ ” Dartmouth coach Sammy McCorkle said of his halftime message to his squad. “ ‘You’re fortunate enough to be in a position (where) you can come out and we can have energy, and we can be more physical at the point of attack and get that changed around.’

“That’s what we ended up doing in that second half.”

The win was a reversal from Dartmouth’s season-opening rout of Fordham a week prior.

Early on, the Big Green were “going through the motions a little bit,” McCorkle said.

After the Dartmouth offense’s opening drive fizzled out in three plays, Merrimack marched 60 yards down the field in seven plays, capped by a 13-yard rushing score from Jermaine Corbett, a graduate transfer from Stonehill.

In need of a quick response, McCorkle got one from Jackson Proctor and Painter Richards-Baker. As Proctor rolled right out of the pocket, he spotted Richards-Baker streaking toward the Dartmouth sideline and connected with his fellow senior for a 75-yard catch-and-score to level the game, 7-7.

Carrying a 10-7 lead into the intermission, McCorkle said he preached to his group to forget about any individual beefs with Warriors players and challenged the Big Green to play with more aggression and energy.

McCorkle’s halftime call to action was eventually heard, but not before Merrimack, supported by the large homecoming home crowd, opened the second half with a 72-yard touchdown drive. Corbett’s second rushing score, this one from 11 yards out, handed the Warriors a 14-10 advantage they would carry into the fourth quarter.

“He’s so good,” McCorkle said of Corbett, who ran for 137 yards on 21 carries and caught three passes for 45 yards in the game. “He’s quick, he’s elusive. For a guy his size, he’s very hard to tackle, too.”

In spite of Corbett’s performance, a pair of fourth-quarter field goals from Zalc and a late defensive stand ultimately proved to be enough for the Big Green to remain unbeaten on the season.

Senior defensive end Ejike Adele’s first-down sack of Merrimack quarterback Ayden Pereira, in combination with fellow senior defensive end Josiah Green, was instrumental in foiling the hosts’ late drive and getting the ball back for one final push.

Adele said in moments like those, “you gotta empty out your tank,” and he believes that “tank time” mentality up front was key in helping win the game.

He also expressed a glass-half-full evaluation of Dartmouth’s up-and-down performance against the Warriors ahead of Ivy League play commencing. The Big Green return to Hanover to host Penn on Saturday at 1 p.m.

“We’re going to end up in dogfights like this definitely more than once,” Adele said. “It’s good that we had this experience now, so we can move forward, look at the things we messed up on in key situations (and) keep building on it.”

Alex Cervantes can be reached at acervantes@vnews.com or 603-727-7302.