Motivated Sprint eats up Cornell

The Penn sprint football team was on an eleven-game winning streak. But the clock struck midnight two Friday nights ago, as the Quakers lost to Army. It was their first defeat in nearly two years.

But that is not to say that this band of brothers is one of losers. Losers give up; this team does not.

On their home turf last Friday night, the Quakers took on Cornell for a second time this season. In the first match-up between these Ivy rivals, the Red and Blue squeaked to victory by just one point. Not this time.

This time, Penn annihilated the Big Red, 41-3.

Perhaps the Quakers were disappointed with a one-point finish in their season opener against Cornell. Or perhaps Cornell fell prey to the Quakers' wrath after Army. Whatever the motive, one thing was obvious -- Penn played to win.

One player in particular let nothing stand in his way of victory.

Junior running back Mark Gannon rushed for 102 yards and four touchdowns to hand the Big Red a devastating blow.

But Gannon, who has since been named CSFL Offensive Player of the Week, took no credit for his excellent performance. Instead, he passed the praise of the win to Penn's special and defensive teams.

"Our special teams really outplayed [Cornell] and created a lot of turnovers," Gannon said. "Our defense did the same thing.

"Because of them we had a short field to work with. We only had to go 30 or 20 yards to get a touchdown."

With the priceless gifts of prime field position from the special teams and blocking from the defense, the offense was repeatedly handed a dream come true -- a short distance from the ball to the goal line.

Four of the Quakers' scoring drives started from inside Cornell's 35-yard line.

Penn's defense almost held the Big Red scoreless going into halftime. But with just over a minute remaining in the first half, Cornell's Chris Gamic kicked a 36-yard field goal to bring the score to 28-3.

Thanks to Penn's smothering defense, that was all the scoring the Big Red would do for the rest of the night.

"[Cornell's] offense really didn't have any kind of push to score against our defense," Penn coach Bill Wagner said. "I credit our defense for coming up big [Friday night]."

Not only did Penn's defense come up big to stop Cornell from finding the end zone, it put some points on the board itself.

In the second half, Quakers sophomore linebacker Chris Malachowski plowed through Cornell quarterback Charlie Tarn, causing a fumble that bounced into the waiting hands of sophomore linebacker Brian Raphael. Forty-seven yards later, the scoreboard read 35-3.

Gannon capped off the scoring for the night with a 28-yard touchdown drive to make the final score, 41-3.

With Army in a bye week, Penn's win did not allow the Quakers to climb back atop the CSFL rankings.

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