Hobart Rallies Late Once Again to Beat Pride, 12-7

The Hobart College Statesmen struggled to move the ball on a cold, windy day in Geneva. The visiting Springfield College Pride triple option rushing attack drove 13 plays and 80 yards to take a 7-0 lead on their opening possession.

Hobart (6-1, 4-1) would respond with nine play, 50 yard scoring drive which was capped by SR RB Bradley Burns after he took a six yard run in for a TD. The JR PK Will McCool PAT hit the upright however so Springfield (4-4, 3-2) clung to a 7-6 lead that would stand at the half.

The second half saw the defense and field position take over. JR PK Rio Schmidt would tie a Hobart record with a 68 yard punt that pinned the Pride deep. Although JR QB Shane Sweeney would throw an interception halfway through the fourth quarter, the Statesmen defense held. Hobart would look to be in trouble after a couple of ill-timed penalties had them facing a third and 17 from their own 25, but JR WR Brandon Shed beat the Springfield coverage and grabbed a 47 yard pass to get the Statesmen into Pride territory! A few plays later, Shed ultimately caught a game winning 18 yard TD pass with only 1:47 remaining in the game!

The two point play would fail but HC Mike Cragg surprised Springfield with an onside kick that was recovered by the Statesmen. A few plays later Hobart took the victory formation and won the game.

Although I wasn't sure because of the whole 2006-7 sanctions thing, the HWSAthletics website and story confirmed after the fact that this was officially the 500th win in Hobart College history.

The Statesmen were out-gained by the Pride 289 to 233 yards but as you can see, a good chunk of those came on the first drive of the game. After that the Hobart D really made some big plays and held Springfield's offense to four of 13 and two of six on third and fourth downs, respectively.

Hobart was led by Sweeney with 164 passing yards, a TD and an INT. Burns led the rushing attack with 64 yards and a TD. Defensively the Statesmen were led by SR OLB Marcus Jemison with 11 tackles, including a sack and a TFL.

The win keeps Hobart's LL title hopes alive but they'll need to take down a tough WPI squad that improved to 5-2, 2-2 today with a convincing 19-7 win over RPI (4-4, 2-2). I'll have more on today's game on Sunday night's ITH podcast and more on WPI next week.

Thanks for reading and go 'Bart!