Football falls to Trine

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By Dan Schumerth, September 28, 2008

Franklin College’s football team picked up its first loss on Saturday as the Grizzlies fell on the road to Trine University, now 3-0, 30-27. Franklin falls to 2-1.

The Grizzly offense started slowly for the second week in a row as their first three possessions resulted in fumbles (2) and a punt. The Grizzlies would later add two more fumbles and an interception to bring their turnover tally to five, also for the second week in a row.

“We just need to have a really hard week of practice and come out focused from the start of the game,” said freshman Cameron Mousa.

Four of those five turnovers led to Thunder scores, three touchdowns and a field goal. Trine turned the ball over twice.

Following a defensive stop on the Thunder’s first possession, Franklin fumbled the punt.

The Thunder then drove 26 yards in just five plays to score. Troy Hirschy caught the 8-yard touchdown pass from Eric Watt to go up 7-0.

The Grizzlies followed up their first possession fumble with a second consecutive fumble, this time one play into the drive. Six plays and 20 yards later Trine’s Jeremy Howard kicked a 22-yard field goal.

At the end of the first quarter though, Franklin got a takeaway of its own by forcing a Trine fumble. The Grizzlies took advantage by going 18 yards in three plays; including a 10-yard touchdown run by senior Jon Erik Bennett shrink the deficit to three, 10-7.

“The defense played amazing the entire game,” Mousa said.

“They had to just come off and they got put in a lot of different, like bad spots and bad situations.”

Trine missed a field goal towards the end of the quarter, which set up Franklin to take its first lead in the second quarter. Seniors Austin Gorrell and Chad Rupp connected on an 8-yard touchdown pass to cap of the 80-yard drive. Junior Machy Magdalinos’ extra point attempt was blocked.

On the next Thunder possession, sophomore Scott Martin picked off a Watt pass and returned it to the Trine 15-yard-line. A Trine penalty placed the Grizzlies on the 6-yard-line. Two plays later Rupp found senior Tony Gregory in the end zone for the score and a 20-7 lead.

With 15 seconds left in the half, Trine’s Mikael Glidden ran it in for a 1-yard score. The halftime score was 20-16 after a missed two-point conversion attempt by the Thunder.

The teams traded punts to start the second half, but Franklin fumbled the second on its own 2-yard-line.

On the first play of the drive, Trine’s Glidden ran it in for the score and the lead, 23-20.

Following another Franklin fumble and punts by either team, the Grizzlies put together an 82-yard drive on the strength of Rupp’s arm. In the 10-play drive, Rupp threw nine times with eight completions. Senior Logan Deffner caught Rupp’s third touchdown pass of the day, which went for six yards and gave Franklin a 27-23 lead with 12:51 remaining in the fourth quarter.

Franklin’s defense forced a punt, but Trine’s Aaron Shoemaker answered by intercepting a Rupp pass on Franklin’s 35-yard-line.

It took just 1:13 for Trine to regain the lead. Marion Brown ran it in from four yards out.

The remainder of the game was all defense. There were three three-and-outs, two by Franklin and one by Trine, before Trine ran the final minutes off the clock to seal the victory.

“Nothing went right for us the entire game … we came out really, really flat in the first half,” Mousa said.

“We just tried to pick it up in the second half and it never came to us. I just don’t think we were determined to win that game.”

Like the score, most of the numbers were similar. Franklin’s offense achieved 16 first downs, to Trine’s 15. Franklin gained 334 total yards to Trine’s 336. Franklin converted on third down seven times, to Trine’s six. Franklin had one sack, by senior Dan McManus, to Trine’s two.

The big difference, on top of the turnovers, was in time of possession. Franklin held the ball for just 20:59, compared to Trine’s 39:01. Also, the Thunder converted three times on fourth down, while Franklin did not even have a fourth down attempt.

“Yeah, we want to go 10-0, repeat as HCAC champs and make a huge run in the playoffs, but we’re just trying to take it one game at a time. Ranking really isn’t that big of a deal to us,” said Mousa.

Next Saturday, the Grizzlies are on the road again to take on Defiance College at 1:30 pm.