Box Score
LANCASTER, Pa. - Junior running back Scott
Stephen rushed for a game-high 141 yards and threw
a pair of touchdown passes to lead Franklin & Marshall over
Gettysburg 14-13 in Centennial Conference (CC) football action
on Saturday.
Stephen, originally recruited by the Diplomats
(4-6, 3-3 CC) as a quarterback, connected on a 1-yard touchdown
toss to Justin Salton in the second quarter
and hit Dan Houseman with 10:36 remaining to
help F&M win for the ninth time in its last 11 meetings with
the Bullets (5-5, 2-4 CC) in Lancaster.
Houseman's winning touchdown reception capped
a 16-play, 93-yard drive that took 5 minutes, 52 seconds across
the third and fourth quarters. The win gives the Diplomats
three home victories for the first time since 1997 and three
conference wins for the first time since 1998.
F&M's Jeff Harner completed
11 of 22 passes for 104 yards while Salton, the CC's all-time
receptions leader, capped his stellar career with six catches
for 46 yards and one score. Andy Rehring recorded
a team-high 12 tackles and forced a fumble in the final minutes
to seal the win.
Quarterback Joe Gossweiler (Florham
Park, NJ/Hanover Park) accounted for 194 yards of
total offense to pace Gettysburg, which dropped its third
straight game to finish the season one victory shy of its
first winning campaign since 1995. Gossweiler completed 8
of 23 passes for 145 yards and also carried 13 times for 49
yards.
Senior Nick Nocar (Baltimore, MD/Gilman)
caught five passes for a team-high 103 yards and also scored
the Bullets' lone touchdown on a five-yard run in the opening
minutes of the third quarter to give the visitors a 13-7 lead.
Matt Cardillo (Yorktown Heights, NY/Yorktown)
rolled up a team-high 66 of Gettysburg's 164 rushing yards
on 16 carries.
Trailing by six late in the third quarter,
the Diplomats emerged from the shadow of their own goalpost
to march for the winning points.
In punt formation on fourth-and-2 at its
own 15 to open the fourth quarter, Franklin & Marshall gained
an automatic first down on a Bullet offsides penalty to sustain
the drive. Harner then hit Matt Wagaman on a
15-yard strike to convert a third-and-7 and Stephen followed
with a 26-yard run into Gettysburg territory at the 36.
Facing third-and-6, Harner found Salton for
an eight-yard gain to the Bullet 24 before a pass interference
penalty set the Diplomats up with a first-and-goal at the
6. Three plays later, Stephen took a pitch around the right
end, then tossed a halfback option to Houseman in the end
zone to make it 14-13 with 10:36 left.
Gettysburg drove the F&M 22 on its next drive,
but two negative runs and a penalty put the Bullets in third-and-19
and the drive stalled on a pair of incompletions.
Gettysburg moved from its own 1 to the 31
on its final possession before Rehring forced a Gossweiler
fumble and Chris White pounced on the football
with 2:15 left. A two-yard Harner sneak on fourth-and-1 sealed
the win.
The Bullets took a 3-0 lead on the first
of two John Edgar (Gettysburg, PA/Gettysburg)
field goals. Edgar nailed a 32-yarder with 6:30 left in the
first half, then pulled Gettysburg within 7-6 on a 21-yard
field goal after the Diplomats' 14-play, 77-yard scoring drive
capped by the Stephen-to-Salton touchdown pass.
Gettysburg needed only two plays - both
from Nocar - to retake the lead early in the third quarter.
Nocar took a Gossweiler pass on the first play of the Bullets'
second possession and raced 61 yards to the Franklin & Marshall
5. On the next play, the senior halfback took an option pitch
from Gossweiler and crossed the goalline for the 13th and
final touchdown of his collegiate career.
Gossweiler found A.J. Sutsko (Boothwyn,
PA/Archmere Acad. [DE]) for an apparent two-point
conversion and 14-7 lead, but an illegal-man-downfield penalty
negated the play and Edgar instead knocked home the extra-point
for a 13-7 advantage with 12:14 left in the third.
In addition to his big receiving day, Nocar
rushed for 15 yards to finish with 1,004 for his collegiate
career to go along with 774 career receiving yards. Gossweiler's
145 passing yards gave him 1,172 for the season to become
the sixth Gettysburg quarterback since 1979 to throw for at
least 1,000 yards in a season.
Sophomore linebacker Michael Schmidt
(Huntington Station, NY/Walt Whitman) led the Bullets
with a career-high 18 tackles. Nathan Smith (Milford,
NY/Cooperstown Central) added 14 tackles, three pass
breakups and a 60-yard kickoff return that led to Edgar's
second field goal.
Gettysburg returns to action on Saturday,
Sept. 4, 2004 at Lebanon Valley.
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