.tmp) Warriors Second Half Burst Buries
The Devils 24-7
By John Green
Williamsport, PA – The Lycoming College Warrior
football team returned to action after an off-week as they faced the
Devils from FDU-Florham. Lycoming came into the contest with a 3-0
record in the MAC. FDU has a 0-5 record in the conference. Last year
FDU upset the Warriors with a 34-28 overtime victory set up by three
fourth-quarter touchdowns on passes of 29, 30 and 61 yards. Florham
is suffering from injury to five of their starting 11 offensive
players and has had plenty of tough luck this year. Lycoming came
into the game ranked 11th in the D3 Top 25 poll.
The Game: Under a summer like
October setting, the Lycoming College Warriors extended their 2003
unbeaten streak to four games as great defense and a second half
offensive burst downed the Devils of FDU-Florham. The question of
the day was how would the Warriors react after an off-week and was
answered with a very slow start out of the box offensively.
Lycoming could only muster a field goal
in the first 30 minutes of play, but you could not put all the blame
on the offensive. FDU-Florham’s defense played exceptionally well
and “they gave us more pressure than we expected” said Lycoming Head
Coach Frank Girardi.
Nothing comes easy in the MAC and Frank
talked about how FDU-Florham came here to play and that is what
football is all about, offense, defense and special teams. “Everyone
is going to come here and give us their best shot and we took it,
then we did our thing which was control the football, play great
defense and offensively we were a little off our game in the first
half, but they came back in the second half and did what we had to
do.”
Lycoming’s special teams in the form of
the field goal unit scored the only point in the half as Freshman
Chris Schrader kicked a 29 yarder to score with just 49 seconds in
the half. Lycoming’s defense played exceptional all day as
highlighted by the FDU-Florham fumble forced by Brian Kaspick and
recovered by Luke Sterling on FDU’s 43 yard line in the third
quarter of play.
.tmp) Ricky Lannetti Shines: It took
just three plays for Lycoming to score after the fumble and it was
all WR Ricky Lannetti in this series. The first play was a 10 yard
pass play from QB Phil Mann to Ricky for a first down. Then,
Lannetti took an end around for 11 yards and another first down at
FDU’s 22 yard line. Finally, Drew Corsilli rushed up the middle for
20 yards but fumbled into the end zone where Ricky Lannetti fell on
the ball for a touchdown. Lycoming extended their lead to 10-0 with
the PAT and just over five minutes in the third quarter.
Lannetti continued to be a force in the
game as he was on the receiving end of a 36 yard pass play to
Florham’s 15 yard line which set up Lycoming’s second touchdown.
Robert Miller took the ball to the end zone on two consecutive runs
of 7 and 8 yards with just 50 seconds off the clock in the fourth
quarter giving the Warriors a 17-0 advantage.
Then Lycoming’s defense caused another
turnover as Adam Bickford intercepted Florham QB Patrick O’Neil at
the Lycoming five yard line to end the FDU threat. Lycoming wasted
little time as they marched 95 yards in 7 plays highlighted by a 41
yard run by Drew Corsilli and a 29 yard pass completion from Mann to
Sean Hennigar. Joe Carpenter capped off the drive with a four yard
rush into the end zone for the final Lyco score and a 24-0
lead.
A determined Florham squad was not about to be shut out
in the game and completed a 7 play 76 yard scoring drive of their
own with just 1:12 in the game. The drive, mostly through the air,
benefited from a 29 yard completion from O’Neil to Mike Daily and a
O’Neil to Chris Castillo connection for 24 yards. RB Chris Trolan
took the ball in from the one yard line for the score.
Lycoming’s running game was improved
especially in the second half as the team totaled 143 yards rushing.
Drew Corselli had 79 yards on the day with a 41 yard run in the mix.
The team averaged 4 yards per carry. “We have been working hard on
the run game and obviously we know we have a lot of play makers on
that side of the ball as far as throwing the football. We are going
to continue to interject that run in there and we are going to get
better at it,” Girardi concluded.
Next week Lycoming plays Delaware Valley
at David Person field for a 1:30 start. The game is Lycoming’s
homecoming.
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