The Brown football team marched down field behind James Perry and Sean Morey to score in the last minute. PROVIDENCE, RI. -- Just like a shootout at the O.K. Corral, Saturday's football game between Penn and Brown came down to the last team standing. In a game with five lead changes, the Bears (3-3, 1-2 Ivy League) ended up with the only one that mattered, as Brown scored the game's last touchdown with only four seconds remaining, defeating the visiting Quakers, 58-51. "Half the group should really feel good about what they have done," Bagnoli said. "The other half is so far down right now that it will probably be until Wednesday before they can get themselves pulled back up." The second group that Bagnoli alludes to, obviously, is the Penn defense. After watching the Quakers (4-2, 2-1) tie the game at 51 with only 44 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, the confident Bears offense returned to the field and once again executed against the Penn defense. Behind the arm of quarterback James Perry, Brown drove the length of the field, and from 24 yards out, Perry found receiver Stephen Campbell open in the endzone for the game-winning completion. "I was in the slot position," Campbell said. "I broke it outside and saw that nobody was there." As both teams used the first half for warm-up, the second half looked like a slam-dunk contest with both teams scoring at will. Of the Ivy League record 109 combined points, 78 came in the final 30 minutes. The previous record for most points in an Ivy game came in Dartmouth's 56-41 victory over Yale in 1982. "I have never been involved in a game like this in all of my time coaching," Penn coach Al Bagnoli said. "If you were going to tell me that we were going to score 51 points and lose the game, I was going to say you are crazy." Perry started Brown's scoring barrage on their first drive of the third quarter. Less than a minute after Penn quarterback Matt Rader threw an interception, Perry found Brown wide receiver Sean Morey open in the endzone for a 19-yard touchdown. The pass caught by last year's Ivy League Player of the Year gave Brown a 21-17 lead. Brown came out in the second half with a revamped game plan. After rushing the ball 11 times for only 22 yards in the first half, the Bears decided to concentrate on their passing game, throwing on more than 85 percent of their offensive plays in the second half. "We went into the game where we were trying to work some things with the run," Brown coach Phil Estes said. "One of the things that we saw at halftime was that they were always worried about Sean and giving him a lot of attention deep, so we just worked the dig route in on the back side. James was right on in throwing it to him." The Quakers were never able to solve Brown's passing attack. The Bears went on to score on each of their six possessions in the second half, including both of their two-point conversions. "We just ran out of answers," Bagnoli said. "We tried three, four, five and six man pressure. We had some severe breakdowns on our entire defense. We used every defensive back we traveled with." Penn tried to counter by rallying behind their record-setting running back Jim Finn. After Brown had taken their largest lead of the game, 36-23, the Quakers handed the ball over to Finn. Finn responded, giving the Quakers new life and a brief 37-36 lead halfway through the fourth quarter. In the Quakers' last four drives of the game, Finn carried the ball 17 times for 130 yards and scored four touchdowns. Combined with his two touchdowns in the first half, the Quakers' senior running back set a new single-game Penn record, while his 259 rushing yards ranks second behind Terrance Stokes's 272 yards against Princeton in 1993. "I don't know what it is, but I don't even feel like I am warmed up until the fourth quarter," Finn said. "Obviously they were worn down a bit, but that's when I felt the strongest." Finn's big day was complemented by Penn's passing game. Aside from his interception, Rader had a spotless game completing 21-of-34 passes for 250 yards, including an 18-yard touchdown pass to Doug O'Neill. Penn's 538 offensive yards, however, proved insufficient, as the Bears passing attack could not be stopped by the Quakers' defense. "We basically felt that if we got out on the field that we were going to score, so all we had to do was keep scoring," Finn said. "Hopefully there would be one stop on defense where we would have the opportunity to go ahead, but it didn't happen." Perry -- without any defensive pressure -- continuously threw to his three favorite receivers: Morey, Campbell and tight end Zachary Burns. The Bears' three receivers combined for 25 of Perry's new Brown single-game record 37 completions. "If I execute, if I make the easy pass, they will make the big play," Perry said. "Penn has an amazing defense, but our guys on the outside are tough to stop." Perry ended the game having thrown for 470 yards and five touchdowns. The Brown quarterback's passing totals rank second in Brown single game performance history behind his 474-yard performance against Dartmouth last year. From a shutout one week to allowing 58 points the next, Penn's defense needs to once again find the elements that disappeared on Saturday in Providence. On the other hand, the Quakers offense has to worry about proving that this weekend was not a fluke.
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