The Penn sprint football team was unable to keep its championship dreams alive as it suffered a 24-17 loss at the hands of Cornell at Franklin Field.
It was the second straight loss for the Quakers, who fell to 2-2 and were eliminated from competition for the Collegiate Sprint Football League title.
After a 21-yard Peter Stine field goal, Cornell was able to reclaim the lead in the second quarter with a 5-yard touchdown from running back Michael Fullowan. But the Quakers were quick to respond to this touchdown with junior running back J.T. Hutchinson rushing for 81 yards and then making a 1-yard dive for Penn's first touchdown of the day.
By halftime the Quakers were still leading Cornell, 10-7 but this lead was short-lived when the Big Red tied the game with a 23-yard field goal from Jason Zittel in the third quarter.
In the fourth quarter, Cornell was able to score two touchdowns from quarterback Alec Macaulay -- a seven yard run and a 59-yard pass.
The Quakers fought to regain the lead, but the Big Red's defense was too strong, as Penn only reached the end zone once more, on a 5-yard David Derr reception.
Although this touchdown was followed by more scoring opportunities for Penn, the momentum was stopped by the Cornell defense with them intercepting a ball and then sacking Mike Loguidice twice.
"They had three big plays and that was basically their whole offense for the night, but they got 21 points out of it", coach Bill Wagner said. "We certainly had all the effort from the kids. We just didn't really finish them off when we had chances to do it."
In fact, Penn was in the red zone five times but was only able to convert three of these opportunities into points. Loguidice said he believed that the offense broke down through the mistakes it made during the game and was not able to sustain a substantial drive late.
Wagner said he believed that despite the loss, Penn exhibited its best passing game of the season with Loguidice making 15 completions out of 25 attempts for 175 yards and was very hopeful for even better performance from the team's quarterback in the future.
Another highlight was the play of senior running back Scott Pickett, who rushed for 156 yards on 23 carries.
Senior captain Kevin Piro recorded six tackles and forced a fumble. Piro also singled out the efforts of freshman defensive tackle Christian Corrigan, who made two key tackles near the end of the fourth quarter to give Penn the ball, although the Quakers were not able to covert this effort into any more points.
"The only statistic that matters is the bottom line," Wagner said. "And we came up second."
