HONOLULU – Saturday night was truly a tale of two halves as the Aggies squandered a 14-point first-half lead to come up on the losing end of a bout against Hawai'i.
 
After dominating the first half of play, the Aggies were unable to produce any second half points – falling 20-17 to the Rainbow Warriors on a rainy night at Clarence T.C. Ching Complex.
 
Once again, the Aggies were led by quarterback Diego Pavia who accounted for 258 of NM State's 335 yards of offense. For the second straight week, Pavia paced the Aggies in rushing yards – this time going over the century mark for the second time in his career as he finished with 102 yards on the ground.
 
On the defensive end, J.J. Dervil led the Aggies with seven total tackles, including five solo tackles. Additionally, Torren Union made a big impact in his 2023 debut as he was tied for second on the team in tackles with six.
 
FIRST HALF
In most cases, a road trip spanning over 3,000 miles is enough to cause a team to get off to a slow start, however, the Aggies did not fall victim to jet lag as Diego Pavia captained a 68-yard touchdown drive on the second possession of the game to take an early lead. The drive was highlighted by a screen pass which Ahmonte Watkins took 39 yards to the end zone.
 
Following a second Hawai'i drive which ended in a punt, the Aggies turned in a slow-moving drive which ate up over eight minutes of clock time before ending with a 35-yard field goal off the foot of Ethan Albertson – giving the Aggies a 10-0 lead less than 10 minutes into the contest.
 
NM State appeared to be on its way to adding more points to the scoreboard as Diego Pavia busted his longest rush of the season – scrambling 44 yards to set the Aggies up with first-and-10 on the Hawai'i 20-yard line. However, the Rainbow Warrior defense would put and end to the drive with a forced fumble which Hawai'i's Daniel Williams returned 41 yards to the NM State side of the field.
 
From there, Hawai'i would tack on its first points of the game as the turnover turned into three points after Keonte Glinton made strong defensive plays on back-to-back plays to get the Hawai'i offense off the field.
 
The Aggies bounced back nicely after fumbling the ball on the previous possession as they put together their longest scoring drive of the night by way of going 73 yards and finishing off with a walk-in touchdown from Star Thomas. With the score, the Aggies entered the break ahead 17-3.
 
SECOND HALF
With the second half getting underway at 11:45 p.m. (MT), the Hawai'i offense immediately took advantage of its first opportunity as they pieced together an eight-play, 75-yard touchdown drive on the opening possession of the third quarter.
 
Ultimately, the final 30 minutes belonged to the Rainbow Warriors as the Aggie offense struggled to get anything moving in the right direction – totaling just 78 yards of offense with exactly 39 yards coming from the run game and 39 yards coming from the pass game. Meanwhile, Hawai'i's offense did the opposite as they produced 239 yards which turned into 17 points.
 
After cutting the Aggie lead to seven points, Hawai'i threatened to pull even as they drove the ball to the NM State 10-yard line before the ball slipped out of quarterback Brayden Schager's hand and on to the turf where Keyshaun Elliott recovered the ball to give the Aggies new life.
 
Unfortunately for the Aggies, the ensuing drive would net negative two yards before Zach Haynes had to punt the ball back to the home side.
 
As it did on the previous drive, Hawaii drove the ball down the field, however, this time the Rainbow Warriors capitalized to make the score 17-17 with just over seven minutes remaining on the clock.
 
After what would be the Aggies' final drive of the night, Hawai'i managed to move the ball to the Aggie seven-yard line where they would let the clock run down to two seconds before hitting a game-winning field goal.