September 27, 2003

Lycoming College Football Coverage
2003 Season: Game Report
Susquehanna Vs Lycoming Warriors

Lycoming College 2003 Football Video
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Photos By John Green

Lycoming College Takes 2003 MAC Championship In Playoff Form 38-0

By John Green
November 15, 2003 Williamsport – Lycoming College came into today with one goal and that was to take the MAC Championship their way by defeating the Susquehanna Crusaders, and defeat them they did.  David Person Field had the electricity of a championship day as the seniors were introduced for the last time on the field during the regular season.  This senior group has never been involved in a championship, the first senior class since 1975.  Well, they insured that the record would continue as the Warriors won every aspect of the Warrior Vs Crusader rivalry.

“We have not been in the playoffs since 1999 and you know this senior team has never experienced being in the playoffs.  Every team and every player that has been here since 1975, everyone has had at least one MAC championship.  This senior group did not have any, so this was a special game for our seniors,” noted Head Coach Frank Girardi.

Susquehanna traveled North for this game ranked second in MAC total offensive stats, averaging 430 yards per game.  Also, their passing attack was ranked second  in the MAC averaging 264 yards per game.  Senior WR Mark Bartosic is the second leading pass receiver in the nation averaging 131 yards per game with four 1,000 yard seasons.  Today, Bartosic had eight receptions for "guess what?" 131 yards, but most of the yardage was in the fourth quarter.  Mark had only three receptions through three quarters.

The game plan by Lycoming was to try to shut down Bartosic and they did a superior job against him and the rest of the offensive attack of Susquehanna. Coach Girardi said, “It is tough to shut somebody out, especially in this day an age.  Bartosic is a tough receiver and we had a game plan for him.  We had somebody up in his face; we had some players around that made some big time hits too.  And that is what you have to do with a kid like him. If he does get his catches, you have to be extremely physical.  I was happy the way our defense played; especially stopping the run and then when they had to go to a lot more passing I think it was certainly to our benefit.  When we had those young kids in at the end, they were still doing what they were coached to do all week.  So it was a great effort obviously by our defense.  Today, we played as well as we have all year for a complete game, there is no question about it.  Our special teams were tops we kept the ball from him on the kickoffs and punts, we did what we had to do and it was going to be tough to beat us today.  It was going to be very tough to beat us today.”

Girardi was especially proud of the defensive play today.  “The defense has really been playing well and last week I think they played as well as they have been playing all year."  Susquehanna had great field position early in the game on two Warrior turnovers, a fumble by Drew Corsilli and an interception of a Phil Mann pass.  "You know when those  things (turnovers) happened early in the ballgame even with poor field position our kids came up with the interceptions, our front four did a great job.  I could count on one hand how many times we blitzed, maybe on three fingers, but we knew that going in.  We thought we could get enough pressure with our front four, especially our number one group, we thought we could do that,”  Frank concluded.

The Warrior defense held the Crusaders to just 25 yards rushing, a tribute to the front line and linebackers.  Susquehanna could only register 122 yards on 43 plays through three quarters.  Lycoming’s offensive on the other hand rolled to 426 total yards in the game.  Lycoming Junior QB Phil Mann completed 13 of 18 passes with one interception.  Mann’s favorite receiver, Senior WR Ricky Lannetti had 6 receptions for 161 yards including an 80 yard touchdown strike with seven minutes to go in the second quarter.  Today, Ricky Lannetti broke the Lycoming College career reception record held by Tim Dumas at 62 receptions.  Lannetti set the new benchmark at 65 receptions.

About Lannetti, Girardi chuckled, “He is something, isn’t he?  He is brutal.  He is brutal.  He does so many things for you.  We moved him around today.  He is our go to guy, we brought him out of the backfield once and then we slid him up the side and we did some things with him that way, but Ricky Lannetti is a complete ballplayer.  He will block for you, he runs back the kickoffs and punts and he is just a top, top receiver.”

The Lycoming offense and Senior RB Drew Corsilli broke ground on the first drive of the first quarter as Corsilli capped off a 5 play 64 yard drive with a 27 yard sprint for the touchdown with 12:42 on the first quarter clock.  Corsilli had a great first half of play totaling 62 yards on 11 carries.  Drew was injured late in the second quarter and would not return to the game.  Coach Girardi said that the game was very physical. About Corsilli, Frank reported, “He got dinged a little bit, and the way the game was going we decided to keep him out and the same with Justin Grenoble.  Miller (RB Robert Miller) played sparingly and we got him out too.  You saw a lot of young kids today and we think that is important.  We think that is extremely important to play a lot of our young guys in big games like this.  I’ll tell you what, when you look at that secondary back there, those boys were hitting.  And they are young freshman.  They don’t back off.”

Phil Mann added two touchdowns, one on a 27 yard scramble and another on a one yard plunge over center.  Mann had 54 yards on seven carries averaging 6.7 yards per carry.  Phil had  one of his best days through the air as he ended the scoring with a nine yard pass completion to Sean Hennigar with 10:18 on the clock int the third quarter.  Chris Scharder had a perfect day in PAT’s and added a 42 yard field goal in the second quarter.

Lycoming College will now wait until tomorrow to see who they play next week in the Division III playoffs.  This is the first time Lycoming has been invited to “the dance” since 1999.  The selections will be a TV broadcast on ESPNews at 1:00pm.  ESPNews can be found on Direct TV channel 207 and on Dish Network channel 142.

Games Photos
Photos by Dick Hostrander