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Penn 36, Dartmouth 24

PHILADELPHIA — The Dartmouth football team led 17-10 late in the first quarter, but Penn rallied for 16 straight points and 26 of the game’s final 33 points to defeat the Big Green, 36-24 on Saturday afternoon at Franklin Field. Misplays proved costly for Dartmouth, with a fumbled punt return, bad snap on a punt leading to a safety and two interceptions.

BOX SCORE

With the loss, the Big Green fell to 2-1 and 0-1 in the Ivy League. Penn improved to 2-1 and 1-0.

“We just have to watch the film, move on, correct the mistakes and keep going,” Dartmouth quarterback Grayson Saunier said. “It’s a long season. Only three games in. We know we have at least seven of them left. We need to make all of them count.”

Saunier made things happen offensively, connecting on 16-of-30 passes for 142 yards, and running for 50 yards and two touchdowns. However, two interceptions hurt.

Chris Corbo led the receivers with 52 yards on five catches. D.J. Crowther enjoyed another strong game with 86 yards on 17 carries and a touchdown; he’s up to 315 yards and six touchdowns through three games. Dylan Elder impressed in four carries as well, rushing for 38 yards.

Defensively, Zyion Freer-Brown and Thaddeus Gianaris tallied career highs in tackles with 10 and nine, respectively. Harrison Keith had his second interception of the young season coming on the game’s first play from scrimmage.

“In the beginning of the game, we come out swinging,” Saunier said. “That’s something we hadn’t done the past two games. We put two touchdowns on the board and a field goal as well. We’ve just got to be more consistent with that, keep that same exact energy and same exact drive the entire game. We felt like we could do a lot of things on offense; we just kept beating ourselves.”

Keith picked off Penn quarterback Liam O’Brien just five seconds into the game to give the ball to the Big Green offense.

It took only six plays for Dartmouth to go 54 yards, ending with Saunier scampering 17 yards for the touchdown and a 7-0 Big Green lead with 11:51 on the clock.

Penn responded with a field goal drive to pull within 7-3, which was the score after 15 minutes of play. Dartmouth quickly changed that early in the second, capping off a long 14-play, 70-yard drive that took 7:20, with Saunier running it in from three yards out. The Big Green led 14-3 with 12:50 left in the second quarter.

The Dartmouth defense then forced a three-and-out, but Big Green punt returner Sean Williams had Penn defenders bearing down, leading to a fumble. It took the Quakers just three plays to go 19 yards into the end zone, pulling within 14-10 with 9:47 on the second-quarter clock.

Dartmouth scored for the third time in as many drives, but settled for a field goal as Owen Zalc knocked it through from 26 yards out to give the Big Green a 17-10 lead with 2:09 left in the second quarter.

The Big Green got the ball back, but an interception gave Penn possession at its 35-yard line with 1:40 on the clock. The Quakers again took advantage, going 65 yards on seven plays, capped off by a nine-yard touchdown grab from Bisi Owens. The extra point made it 17-17, which proved to be the halftime score.

“It was definitely two big [special teams] plays that took the momentum away from us,” Dartmouth coach Sammy McCorkle said. “We’ve got to do a better job of protecting and giving our returner Sean room. You can’t allow a guy to run down there and get right in his face. We had the momentum there and that gave them a short field.”

The Big Green reached its 41-yard line to open the third quarter, but was forced to punt. Luke Armistead boomed a punt into the end zone, but an illegal formation penalty forced them to punt again. On the ensuing play, a high snap forced Armistead to kick the ball out of the end zone for the safety. Penn also had a 34-yard return on the ensuing kickoff to near midfield, leading to a Quakers’ touchdown six plays later and a 26-17 Penn lead with 9:26 left in the third quarter.

“That was very frustrating, but our guys did a good job responding, bouncing back and continuing to fight to get back in,” McCorkle said.

Dartmouth answered immediately with an eight-play, 75-yard drive that began with a 23-yard Saunier rush, later included a 21-yard catch by Nick Lemon and ended with a 12-yard rushing touchdown from Crowther, making the score 26-24 with 6:23 left in the third.

From that point forward, Penn held a 10-0 edge on the scoreboard. On the first play of the fourth quarter, the Quakers missed a 43 yards, giving Dartmouth the ball back down just two with momentum. However, Penn picked off Saunier for the second time, then used another short field to go 28 yards in six plays to take a 33-24 lead, a deficit the Big Green couldn’t overcome.

For the game, Dartmouth held a slim 326-323 edge in total yards. The Big Green finished with a 184-162 edge in rush yards, with Penn holding a 161-142 advantage through the air.

“You can’t dwell on it,” McCorkle said. “You’ve got to learn from it and move on. You’ve got to wipe it. We focus on one game at a time and we didn’t play up to par to win this game today. We’re not going to let this game beat us the next time… we can’t. There’s a lot of film, a lot of corrections we can make from it. We’ll prepare ourselves for a very good opponent next weekend against Yale.”

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NOTES: The loss snapped Dartmouth’s five-game winning streak at Franklin Field. … Zyion Freer-Brown’s 10 tackles were double his previous career high … Thaddeus Gianaris’ nine bested his previous high of six. … Harrison Keith is the first Big Green player since Isiah Swann in 2018 to record an interception in two of the first three games of the season. Swann had one in the season opener vs. Georgetown and three the following game at Holy Cross.

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