Raiders make it three straight in victory over Lafayette

Colgate won its third game in a row and completed a third straight shutout of Lafayette with a 16-0 triumph here Saturday.

The Raiders (4-8, 3-3 Patriot) wrapped up their 2019 campaign with four wins in the last five and saved their best overall defensive effort for the stretch run. Colgate limited Fordham to 208 total yards last week and Lafayette to 242 here Saturday – the two lowest opponent figures of the season.

“Yeah, it was good. Kind of felt like last year a little bit. I’m really proud of the defense,” Colgate head coach Dan Hunt said of the defense. “They kept us in the game when offensively, particularly in the first half – we had one drive that was right – but we really couldn’t get a lot going. The defense was back to having that feeling of confidence.”

Colgate’s offense, meanwhile, put just enough on the board and then controlled the clock in the second half. The Raiders had the ball for 11:08 of the third quarter and 11:07 of the fourth, after possessing it for just 10:59 of the entire first half yet somehow leading 6-0 at intermission.

Grant Breneman scored on a 1-yard touchdown run in the second quarter that was set up by Malik Twyman through the air and on the ground. And then Twyman faked a reverse and found the end zone in the third quarter to make it 13-0. Chris Puzzi’s field goal with 4:32 left capped the scoring.

Puzzi’s 3-pointer was the 30th of his career out of 37 attempts, leaving him as the career record-holder in field goal percentage at .811. He eclipsed Jonah Bowman’s .756 from 201316, capping a pretty salty seven years of placekicking for the Raiders.

Milton Braasch II posted 10 tackles and a pass breakup to lead the Colgate defense, while Abu DaramySwaray finished with eight and two.

Seniors Jacob Esarco and Nick Wheeler contributed sacks. Esarco’s was the second of his career and Wheeler the 33rd, with 9.5 of those this season. Wheeler finishes as Colgate’s all-time sack leader and the Patriot League’s No. 3.

Wheeler was proud of how the team responded down the stretch after a turbulent early season slate.

“Amazing. We started with some rough patches but then four of the last five. That’s a really big accomplishment to come back from that type of (start to) a season,” Wheeler said. “Coach Hunt says a lot of teams would have cashed it in and given up. But we came out every day in practice to give it our all and do what was right for the program.”

The Raiders blanked Lafayette (3-8, 3-2 Patriot) for the third straight season, extending to 13 their streak of consecutive scoreless quarters over the Leopards. Colgate has outscored Lafayette 88-0 the last three years.

The last Raiders team to post shutout victories over the same opponent in three consecutive seasons was 1930-32 over Lafayette by scores of 41-0, 16-0 and 35-0 – the latter by Colgate’s famous Undefeated, Untied, Unscored upon … and Uninvited team.