Football
Lebanon Valley 33, FDU-Florham 21
Box Score
ANNVILLE, Pa. -
Ben Guiles tied a school record with four touchdowns - all in the second half - as Lebanon Valley rallied back to beat FDU-Florham, 33-21, in front of a big Oktoberfest Weekend crowd at Arnold Field.
LVC (2-4, 1-2 MAC) trailed 14-0 to start the game and 21-14 entering the fourth quarter, but the defense came up huge in the second half, holding the Devils (3-3, 0-3 MAC) to just 33 yards of offense in the second half and 151 overall.
Guiles ended up with 126 yards to go over 2,000 for his career, carrying the LVC offense, which racked up 401 total yards.
Caleb Fick threw for 175 yards and a touchdown.
"It was the way we needed to play football," said Head Coach
Jim Monos. "The persistance of our football team, I'm really proud of."
A casual glance at the box might suggest that Guiles carried the team to victory, but it was the defense that stole the show in the second half, stopping the Devils on series after series and not allowing a second-half first down until the final, meaningless drive.
The offense capitalized on great field position and turnovers all through the half to come back and take the lead in the fourth quarter.
"We knew we were losing going into the half, and we knew something had to be done. We just turned on our intensity, our offensive line did a great job," Guiles said. "The defense was stellar today."
Tim Ridewood,
Jason Gigous, and
Jur'ey Fowlkes all came up with interceptions, and
Zach Bleiler had six tackles with 1.5 sacks to lead the defense. They held the MAC's second-best passing offense to 151 yards in the air, 50 of which came on one big play from Matt Jeffers to Beau Reed in the first quarter.
"It was nice to be plus on turnovers, we've been minus in every game. We've overcome that, and this team understands what they have to do to win," Monos said.
FDU got on the board with a defensive play as Joe Mancini popped in front of a Fick pass and took it 54 yards to the house, and the Devils tacked on a run by left tackle James Sullivano later in the quarter to make it 14-0.
Ridewood came up with an interception after
Nic Shirey tipped the ball up, and that led to a three-yard
Brendan Riley catch and touchdown to start the second quarter.
FDU-Florham added another touchdown late in the first half, driving 59 yards and finishing with a Brendon Griffin breakout 14 yards for the score.
The momentum shifted 180 degrees in the second half. Fowlkes started the comeback when he intercepted Jeffers and returned it to the FDU three, and Guiles punched in from there to cut the lead to 21-14 in the third.
In the fourth, LVC cut it even closer when Gigous' pick led to another Guiles touchdown, but
Brittany Ryan missed the PAT to keep FDU up 21-20. Ultimately, it wouldn't matter as the offense came to life, with Riley coming up with a big 29-yard catch to set up Guiles' third TD and take the lead, 26-21.
Needing to score late in the quarter, FDU drove to midfield but couldn't convert in four downs, and LVC punctuated the win with 1:37 to go on Guiles' last touchdown.
Game Notes
LVC turned the ball over on downs six times, going 2-of-8 on fourth-down conversions ... Fick's interception was LVC's only turnover ... After several weeks of taking too many penalties, LVC had just two for 10 yards ... It was Guiles' eighth career 100-yard game. He is averaging 114.7 yards per game this season ... Guiles is the fourth player in program history to run for four TDs in a game; he joins Charlie Parker (2007), Rick Coleman (1975), and Vern Magnuson (1960) ... Tim Picerno finished with 89 yards on six catches. Riley, the tight end, finished with 69 yards ... FDU-Florham managed just 33 yards on the ground ... Colt Zarilla was effective in three series, going 3-for-5 for 49 yards and running four times ... LVC returners Nic Shirey and Jordan Weber had good days, with Weber returning two punts for 31 yards, including a 25-yarder, and Shirey taking back four kicks for 93 yards in all ... FDU ran just 57 offensive plays to LVC's 87, and LVC held a 35:50 to 23:56 time of possession lead ... Charles Thomas led the defensive effort for FDU with 12 tackles and 3.0 TFL ... LVC continued its traditional homecoming celebrations, and Patrick Barry (an LVC swimmer) and Sherae Jones (a manager for the women's basketball team) were crowned king and queen at halftime.
