Unfortunately, Bash's return and 255 yards passing from quarterback Mike Fritz '07 were not enough to defeat the Quakers at home. UPenn escaped a late Big Green comeback to earn a 17-10 victory to the echoing of fans' shouts off of the nearly empty steel-and-concrete mass that is Franklin Field.
The mantra of Quaker head coach Al Bagnoli has always prescribed a healthy dose of defense. Saturday's game showed that the age-old football axiom "A good defense beats a good offense" still holds true in contemporary times.
That is not to say that Dartmouth's defense did not put up a strong showing, keeping Penn scoreless in the first quarter, and holding a team that had scored 20 points in each of its first two games (against Lafayette and Villanova, respectively), to 17.
The Quaker defense was simply able to stop the Big Green offensive squad when it counted the most: inside the red zone. Penn stopped Dartmouth three times inside its 20 yard-line, including a drive that swung momentum into the Quakers' arms for most of the game.
Down 7-3 at the start of the third quarter, Andrew Kempler '08 sent the opening kickoff of the second half wobbling into the air. The kick was short, but the distance it traveled was fortuitous for the Big Green.
As the wobbling ball began to fall, Penn's up-back Brian Raike inexplicably tried to catch it. A number of Dartmouth defenders converged on Raike, including Andrew Dete '09 and Mike Whitticom '08, and the ball popped out of his arms and onto the cleat-ravaged artificial turf. The Big Green's Joe Battaglia '08 pounced on the football, and Dartmouth took over possession on the Penn 26 yard-line.
The Big Green then drove the ball down to the Quaker two yard-line before they began to move backward. The first down play was a handoff to Bash, who was smacked by a group of Penn defenders before fumbling. Fritz covered the ball on the Quaker six-yard line, but that was as far as the Big Green would go.
Two plays later, it was fourth-and-goal on the Penn six, and Kempler came out to attempt what would have been a 22-yard field goal. Unfortunately for the Big Green, the kick sailed wide right and forced Dartmouth off the field in a flurry of disappointment.
Penn, as most good teams do, responded by marching down the field and scoring on a 12-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Robert Irvin to receiver Billy May. Irvin finished the day 15 of 25 for 227 yards two touchdowns, and one pick by Dete.
The real offensive star on the day for the Quakers, however, was Chris Mizell, who with four catches for 64 yards on the day, was not the leading receiver, and did not score a touchdown, but did make an incredible, leaping, one-handed grab and several touch catches in traffic to help the Quakers tack on an extra three points and run down the clock.
The Quakers' Derek Zoch, who had already missed a 26-yard field goal attempt (after hitting four against the Big Green in 2005), tacked on a 23-yarder with 5:24 left in the contest.
Dartmouth made things exciting after Fritz connected with emerging sophomore Philip Galligan '09 on a beautiful 18-yard completion, Dartmouth's best offensive play of the afternoon.
All of this came after the red-and-blue turned the ball over on downs with 47 seconds left. The momentum seemed to have shifted back to the men in green. The Dartmouth sideline came alive as the Big Green attempted an onside kick with just thirty-seven seconds remaining.
The ball sliced off Kempler's foot and into the arms of none other than Mizell, a thorn in Dartmouth's side the entire game, effectively ending the match 17-10, and pushing Dartmouth's hopes of an Ivy League upset back one more week. That next chance comes this Saturday at 12:30 p.m. at Memorial Field in Hanover against the Yale University Bulldogs.
Still, Big Green head coach Buddy Teevens stayed positive. "I'm proud of my guys. They are playing hard," he said. "We will keep pounding and banging away, and we look forward to next week."
