The Bison football team traveled to Washington, D.C. on Nov. 10 to take on Georgetown, the second-place team in the Patriot League, for their last road game of the season. The Hoyas secured the win in a 14-3 victory. This loss dropped the Bison to 1-9 for the season.

The first quarter was a defensive battle, ending scoreless with both teams combining for merely 128 offensive yards. In the second quarter, the Hoyas took a 7-0 lead. The Georgetown quarterback led a nine-play, 78-yard scoring drive. The drive was capped off with a touchdown on a four-yard quarterback keeper to put the team ahead.

Later in the second quarter, the Bison had an opportunity to score after forcing a three-and-out on defense. Following a short punt, the Bison took over at their 47 yard-line and drove to the Hoya 43 yard-line. But Georgetown’s defense stood tall, pressuring quarterback Tarrin Earle ’22 into throwing two incomplete passes and then bringing him down short of a first down on a rush.

Kicker Ethan Torres ’21 knocked in a career-long 37-yard field goal in the third quarter to put the Bison on the board. Torres’ field goal came at the end of a 12-play, 38-yard drive that featured a fourth down conversion by Earle at the Hoya 23-yard line with a two-yard quarterback sneak. Earle also connected with receiver Jared Cooper ’22 for an 11-yard gain during that drive. The score at this point was 7-3, favoring Georgetown.

The Hoyas responded quickly with a touchdown to put Georgetown up 14-3. There was no more scoring after that touchdown in the third quarter. The Bison had a promising drive late in the fourth quarter that was thwarted when Earle was sacked on 4th and 8 to end the game.

In his second career start, Earle completed 17 of 33 passes for 140 yards. Andrew Owers ’19 had 39 receiving yards and Brandon Sanders ’22 had 38 receiving yards on the day. Defensively, Bryan Marine ’19 had nine tackles, Brandon Benson ’21 had eight tackles and Rick Mottram ’21 had seven tackles to pace the Bison. Mottram also tied linebacker Sam Chitty ’20 for the team lead with two tackles for a loss.

“I thought defensively we played better as a team against Georgetown last week, but we will have to play even better if we want to win against Fordham on Saturday,” Mottram said. “Everyone is excited to play one more home game and we know it’ll be a special day for our seniors who will be playing at Christy Mathewson for the last time.”

This was the first loss the Orange and Blue had taken at Cooper Field since 2012; entering the contest, the Bison were 8-2 against the Hoyas in their past 10 meetings. The Orange and Blue will close its 2018 campaign on Nov. 17 when they host Fordham at Christy Mathewson Memorial Stadium. Before that 12 p.m. game, the Bison will honor their 17-man senior class.

“Our focus has been to do what it takes to send our seniors off the right way,” head coach Joe Susan said. “We also will use the momentum gained in this last game in our preparation for what our underclassmen must do to move forward.”