Mistakes nearly cost both teams the game

Missed PATs, fumbles andMissed PATs, fumbles andINTs keep both Penn and BigMissed PATs, fumbles andINTs keep both Penn and BigGreen alive in sloppy affair HANOVER, N.H. -- Rarely has the box score indicated less about the true story of a game than the one for Saturday's Penn-Dartmouth contest. Anyone who looked at the statistics without seeing the final results of the game would assume a Dartmouth win to be the likely conclusion. To those watching the game, however, it became apparent that the winner would classify the game as 'winning ugly.' Despite being thoroughly dominated in the numbers game, Penn was almost handed a win by a Dartmouth team that continually shot itself in the foot. The Big Green escaped with a victory in a match that was there for the taking by the Quakers, who in the end gave it right back to Dartmouth. "I definitely think we got away with one," Dartmouth quarterback Jon Aljancic said. "We basically had the game handed to us." Throughout the game Dartmouth had chances to put the Quakers away, but mistakes, mental lapses and just plain old poor execution almost cost the Big Green the win. Perhaps no greater measure of Dartmouth's occasional ineptitude could be found than in the placekicking game. After the first Big Green score, kicker Dave Regula lined up for the usually routine point-after-touchdown attempt. A bad snap forced Aljancic, the holder, to hurriedly place the ball down. The resulting kick sailed wide right and Dartmouth still trailed the Quakers, 7-6. After the next Big Green score, another bad snap left Aljancic with no option but to get tackled without Regula attempting the kick. The situation began to get ridiculous when Regula, who could blame only himself this time, missed wide left after the third Dartmouth touchdown. The worst, however, was yet to come. A Quakers touchdown had narrowed the deficit to 18-13, and Dartmouth was looking to head into the locker room with a lead larger than one touchdown. After taking the ball at its own 37-yard line with 1 minute, 24 seconds left in the half, Aljancic led Dartmouth downfield to the Penn two-yard line. For the fourth time in the half, Regula lined up for a chip-shot kick. And for the fourth time he missed. The Big Green left the field up 18-13, knowing they easily could have had a 24-13 lead. "The kicking game was a fiasco," Dartmouth coach John Lyons said. "It was really disappointing because we work on it all the time. It was just a combination of poor snaps and protection problems." If the Dartmouth kicking game kept Penn in the game in the first half, it was turnovers that allowed the Quakers to eventually take the lead in the second half. The Quakers' offense had sputtered on their first two drives of the second half, and another Big Green score would have almost put the game out of reach. Aljancic, though, threw one of his few errant passes that Joseph Piela picked off and returned to the Dartmouth two-yard line. Penn's offense promptly followed with a scoring drive in which it lost 13 yards and settled for a Jeremiah Greathouse 32-yard field goal. On the ensuing kickoff, Dartmouth wideout Zach Ellis fumbled the return, granting Penn excellent field position once again. Finally the Quakers capitalized on a Dartmouth error, as Steve Teodecki completed a touchdown pass to Mark Fabish for a 22-18 lead. "The mistakes really hurt us," Lyons said. "We knew that if we could stop beating ourselves we could win the game." Actually, though, it was Penn's offensive ineptitude which allowed Dartmouth the chance to come back. The Quakers could not put together a sustained drive when they needed it in the fourth quarter, allowing the Big Green the few final chances they needed to win the game. In fact, Dartmouth never really stopped committing the miscues that plagued it throughout the game. In the fourth Quarter a 76-yard drive was stopped by a fumble by running back Ambrose Garcia. It wasn't until the final drive that the Big Green grabbed back the win that they had been tempting Penn with all afternoon. But even in the end nothing could go perfectly for Dartmouth. For the fifth time the place-kicking unit took the field. For the fifth time they left unsuccessful, with Roger Beckwith again recording the block for Penn. Chances are the next time the Quakers make so many mistakes, the opponent won't bother to return the favor.