AMHERST — It's been quite a while – five years, to be precise – since UMass football could allow itself to think and talk about winning streaks.

The Minutemen put up 31 consecutive points Saturday against their FCS opposition from Merrimack, overturning an early 7-0 deficit, and built up plenty of cushion to withstand a late uprising by the Warriors in a 31-21 victory at McGuirk Alumni Stadium.

Back-to-back wins over first Army and then Merrimack marked the first two-game winning streak since the 2018 Minutemen beat Connecticut and Liberty (in triple overtime) in Weeks 9 and 10.

The two-headed rushing monster of Kay'ron Lynch-Adams and Greg Desrosiers Jr. combined for 250 of UMass' 255 yards on the ground. Lynch-Adams, who ran for 234 yards last week at Army, had 88 more on Saturday to surpass the 1,000-yard mark for the season. Desrosiers, a Lawrence native facing a team from just a few miles away in North Andover, had the real breakout day with 162 yards on 10 carries and three touchdowns covering 8, 57 and 46 yards.

"I definitely wanted to do as well as possible, being a home-state school. I had a little chip on my shoulder," said Desrosiers. "We took it seriously and the coaches made sure we were on top of everything.

"Once we got the win over Army, we were definitely looking to get a second win. Regardless of the competition, we were looking to dominate."

A Homecoming crowd of 14,672 saw UMass (3-7) scuffle its way to a 14-7 halftime lead, although its defense limited Merrimack to only 91 yards. A short punt gave the Warriors the ball in great shape at the UMass 40, and Malakai Anthony promptly hit Jalen McDonald for a 32-yard catch down to the 5-yard line. Anthony ran it in himself from the 5 two plays later. Lliam Davis added the extra point for a 7-0 Warrior lead with 7:35 left in the first quarter.

UMass answered with its own 79-yard drive capped off by an 11-yard TD pass from Taisun Phommachanh (9-of-20 passing, 104 yards) to George Johnson, then grabbed the lead on an 8-yard scoring run by Desrosiers, his first, coming with just over three minutes left before the break.

Each team missed out on first-half points when UMass' Cameron Carson hit his 48-yard field goal try wide left, and Davis' 39-yard attempt as the half ended missed to the right. Just before Carson's field-goal miss, UMass lost an apparent 28-yard TD pass from Phommachanh to Mark Pope, who was ruled to have caught the pass out of bounds, just outside the pylon.

Carson's 39-yard field goal with 6:11 to go in the third boosted UMass into a 10-point lead at 17-7. Desrosiers broke his 57-yard run on the first play of the fourth quarter, and piled on with a 46-yard burst with 8:10 remaining, good for a 31-7 advantage for the hosts.

"That's kind of the things that we expect from him," said UMass coach Don Brown of Desrosiers. "It's nice when you have a pair that you can lean on to make yards for you. In the second half, we ran at will. Greg gave us a little bit of a lightning strike. It seemed like every time he touched the ball, it was a multiple-yard deal."

Trailing by 24, the Warriors (4-5) proceeded to burn the Minutemen with a pair of late scores. Immediately after Desrosiers' third touchdown, Donovan Wadley ran back the kickoff 95 yards to make it a 31-14 game. UMass punted away on its next series and Merrimack took over at its own 16. The visitors drove to the UMass 33 before delving deep into their bag of tricks. Jelani Mason took a backward pass from Anthony and lofted a 33-yard option pass to a wide-open LJ Robinson for another touchdown, pulling Merrimack to within 31-21 with only 2:43 to play.

UMass recovered the onside kick and killed the clock, finishing the game at the Merrimack 2-yard line.

"There's things that happen in the game that you're not very happy about," said Brown. "The kickoff return, blowing it on the trick play, that was a disappointing deal. Defensively, we kind of took care of business in the first half, and offensively, we took it to them in the second half."

UMass finished with 359 yards of total offense to Merrimack's 226, a season low for an opponent.

After a bye week, the Minutemen return to action Nov. 18 at unbeaten Liberty, then finish the season at home against Connecticut Nov. 25.

"When we came off the (first) bye and then beat Army, I thought we were on the beam with our preparation," said Brown. "We did all the right things. I'm just looking forward to having a few great days in a very similar structure that we had getting ready for Army.”