Saturday, September 19
12:30 PM
Lehigh University
2-1
42
vs
21
Penn
0-1
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
F
Penn
0
7
7
7
21
Lehigh
7
14
14
7
42
Mountain Hawks double up Penn in home opener, 42-21
9/19/2015 5:34:00 PM | Football
BETHLEHEM, Pa. - Powered by a career day from junior quarterback Nick Shafnisky, the Lehigh football team cruised to a 42-21 victory over Penn in its home opener on Saturday afternoon in front of 6,971 at Goodman Stadium. With the win, the Mountain Hawks improve to 2-1 on the season. The Lehigh offense racked up an impressive 495 yards of total offense, 250 through the air and 245 on the ground.
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Shafnisky completed 24-of-34 of his passes for 250 yards and career high-tying three passing touchdowns. He also ran for 95 yards to go along with two rushing touchdowns. After having just three catches in his first two games, sophomore Troy Pelletier put together a strong game with ten receptions for 104 receiving yards and two touchdowns. Junior Trevor Socarras added five catches for 55 yards. On the ground, freshman Micco Brisker eclipsed 100 yards rushing for the first time in his career, finishing with 114 on 22 carries.
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"I'm really thrilled with how the offense performed the whole day," Lehigh head coach Andy Coen said. "This is what I envisioned for this group of kids. We have a really good group of wide receivers, a quarterback that is continuing to mature, and some good young running backs. It came pretty close to the way you like to draw it up today, so I'm proud of the kids for that."
The game began with an impressive drive from the Lehigh offense. Led by Shafnisky, the Mountain Hawks put together a 13-play, 76-yard drive that included a total of five first downs. The drive was capped off by an eight-yard touchdown run by sophomore Gatlin Casey to give Lehigh a 7-0 lead.
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On the Mountain Hawks' second drive, they drove deep within Penn territory once again but gambled on a 4th-and-1 inside the five. Penn's Donald Pantiello stopped freshman Dominick Bragalone in the backfield for a two-yard loss. On the ensuing drive, Penn would respond with a five-yard touchdown run by quarterback Alek Torgersen to complete a 95-yard drive on the first play of the second quarter. Quakers tied it up at seven apiece with 14:55 left in the half.
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Mountain Hawks regained a 14-7 lead midway through the second quarter after Shafnisky connected with Pelletier for a six-yard touchdown. The touchdown was part of an impressive 19-play, 75-yard drive that milked 8:57 off the clock.
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After a defensive stop by the Mountain Hawks, Shafnisky found Pelletier again wide open downfield for a 47-yard touchdown with 1:13 left in the half as Lehigh took a 21-7 into halftime. Â
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The Lehigh offense accumulated 321 yards in the first half. To go along with his 72 rushing yards and rushing TD, Shafnisky threw for 184 yards on 18-of-21 passing with two touchdowns.
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The second half opened with both teams exchanging punts. The Mountain Hawks capitalized on terrific field position on the ensuing offensive possession. After starting on the Penn 39-yard line, Shafnisky extended the Lehigh lead to 28-7 after a three-yard touchdown run with 7:59 left in the third quarter.
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Both offenses started to gain momentum as the Quakers rebounded quickly on their next drive with a 74-yard touchdown pass from Torgersen to Justin Watson. Penn cut the 28-14 deficit in half with 6:50 left. Â It only took Lehigh 1:38 to bump the margin back to 21. Shafnisky picked up his fourth TD of the game when he linked up with senior Stefan Sansone on an eight-yard throwback pass. After an eventful third quarter, the Mountain Hawks took a 35-14 lead into the fourth.
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Both defenses responded in the fourth with interceptions. Two plays after Shafnisky was picked off, junior Brian Githens intercepted a pass on a slant route and returned the interception 28 yards deep into Penn territory. Mountain Hawks took advantage with a six-yard run by Shafnisky for his fifth touchdown of the game. Lehigh extended its lead to 42-14 with 12:43 left in the fourth.
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"Nick has done the little things well. He's gotten so much more accurate and efficient with his throws," Coen said of his junior quarterback. "A lot of his runs, he can scramble and run around and obviously make plays with his feet. A lot of the plays that he converted today were designed read plays. We had quite a few opportunities for him to pull the football and he made some good plays. We haven't been running much in the first couple weeks, but this week we wanted to run it more and he did that very, very well for us."
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Penn quickly responded in 1:32 with a 45-yard touchdown reception by Christian Pearson to pull within 42-21 with 11:11 remaining. That proved to be the final scoring of the game as Lehigh was able to run out the clock en route to its second victory of the year.
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The Mountain Hawks showed significant improvement on third downs, converting 9-of-16 for the game, while limiting Penn to just 3-of-10. The Quakers were also 0-for-3 on fourth downs.
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"What I didn't realize during the course of the game was how well the defense performed on third down conversions," Coen said. "We really dominated that category and that was the first time we've done that in a while. Penn had some offensive weapons, including a talented quarterback who's a young kid and only going to get better. I thought their tailback was really an outstanding player. When all is said and done, we feel pretty good about our 21-point win."
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Lehigh held a 495-476 edge in total yards, including a 245-140 edge in rushing. Penn held a 336-250 advantage through the air.
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Githens led the Lehigh defense with a career-high 11 tackles when senior Olivier Rigaud added nine.
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For Penn, Torgersen completed 30-of-42 passes for 336 yards with two touchdowns and an interception. Tre Solomon led the ground attack with 11 carries for 89 yards. The Quakers begin their 2015 season at 0-1.
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The Mountain Hawks will head back out on the road to play their second Ivy League opponent for a second straight week when they travel to Princeton next Saturday. Kickoff is set for 5 p.m. The game will be broadcast on ESPN Radio 1230 and 1320 as well as ESPNLV.com.
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EXTRA POINTS… Lehigh improved to 4-6 in home openers under Andy Coen… The Mountain Hawks beat Penn for the first time since 2000… the teams had not met since 2003… Lehigh recognized its undefeated 1950 football team at halftime… Lehigh also recognized longtime public address announcer Bill McCoach, who retired over the summer after 27 years as the voice of Lehigh Athletics including 18 years handling the public address at Goodman Stadium… Bob Matthews handled the public address duties on Saturday and will continue to do so for Lehigh football and wrestling… Shafnisky completed passes to eight different receivers, while five players carried the ball on the ground… Lehigh finished with two sacks, one from senior Greg Palma and one from junior Jimmy Mitchell.
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Team Stats
PENN
LEHIGH
Total Yards
476
495
Pass Yards
336
250
Rushing Yards
140
245
Penalty Yards
39
30
1st Downs
22
25
3rd Downs
3
9
4th Downs
0
2
TOP
23:49
36:11
1st Quarter
PENN 0, LEHIGH 7
LEHIGH - Casey, Gatlin 8 yd run (Mish, Ed kick), 13 plays, 76 yards, TOP 5:15
2nd Quarter
PENN 7, LEHIGH 7
PENN - Torgersen, Alek 5 yd run (Gammill, Jimmy kick), 10 plays, 95 yards, TOP 4:09
PENN 7, LEHIGH 14
LEHIGH - Pelletier, Troy 6 yd pass from Shafnisky, Nick (Mish, Ed kick) 19 plays, 75 yards, TOP 8:57
PENN 7, LEHIGH 21
LEHIGH - Pelletier, Troy 47 yd pass from Shafnisky, Nick (Mish, Ed kick) 6 plays, 82 yards, TOP 2:09
3rd Quarter
PENN 7, LEHIGH 28
LEHIGH - Shafnisky, Nick 3 yd run (Mish, Ed kick), 6 plays, 39 yards, TOP 2:36
PENN 14, LEHIGH 28
PENN - Watson, Justin 74 yd pass from Torgersen, Alek (Gammill, Jimmy kick) 3 plays, 80 yards, TOP 1:04
PENN 14, LEHIGH 35
LEHIGH - Sansone, Stefan 8 yd pass from Shafnisky, Nick (Mish, Ed kick) 6 plays, 40 yards, TOP 1:38
4th Quarter
PENN 14, LEHIGH 42
LEHIGH - Shafnisky, Nick 6 yd run (Mish, Ed kick), 2 plays, 14 yards, TOP 0:49
PENN 21, LEHIGH 42
PENN - Pearson, C. 45 yd pass from Torgersen, Alek (Gammill, Jimmy kick) 4 plays, 75 yards, TOP 1:32
Game Leaders
CMP
24
TD
3
YDS
250
INT
1
Players Mentioned
RB
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RB
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WR
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DB
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DL
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DL
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WR
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