CLAREMONT, Calif. -
Sean Lee made a CMS-record five field goals, and
George Kruger and
Joseph Kessler each had 14 tackles, as the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps football team earned a 22-10 road win over Pomona-Pitzer on Saturday evening to take back the Sixth Street Trophy.
CMS improves to 2-1 on the year with the win, and starts off conference play 1-0, while Pomona-Pitzer falls to 2-1 overall and 0-1 in league play.
Lee helped seal the game with a 46-yarder with 2:47 to go to make it a two possession game at 19-10 and break the old program record of three field goals, which had been set 11 times. After Pomona-Pitzer turned the ball over on downs, Lee knocked through his fifth from 40 yards for good measure. He also added field goals from 38, 25 and 22 yards, while
Cooper Nixon accounted for the other score for the Stags with a two-yard touchdown.
CMS opened with a field goal after
Robert Litscher had a pass to
Noah Macapulay for 28 yards, and Nixon had a 14-yard rush to the Sagehen 20, before Lee put one through from 38 to make it 3-0.
Kruger had a tackle on 3rd-and-6 to end the ensuing Pomona-Pitzer drive, and
Jake Son had a 38-yard punt return to set the Stags up at the Pomona-Pitzer 26-yard line. A 19-yard pass from Litscher to
Jaden Rattay put the ball on the one, and two plays later, Nixon scored to make it 10-0.
The Stags got the ball right back after
Brayden Kaelin recovered a fumble on the ensuing kickoff, and Lee was able to convert a 25-yarder to make it 13-0 with 1:06 left in the first quarter.
Pomona-Pitzer got inside the CMS five-yard line, but Kessler had a big tackle for a loss of three yards to push the Sagehens back to the six, and
Jack Davis had a third-down stop to force the Pomona-Pitzer to kick a field goal. Kessler then stopped the next Pomona-Pitzer drive with a fourth-down sack at the CMS 30.
Litscher found Rattay for a 60-yard pass down to the three-yard line in the third quarter, but the Stags settled for a 22-yarder from Lee to make it 16-3 and Pomona-Pitzer was able to go the length of the field to close to within 16-10 with 41 seconds left in the third.
The Sagehens got the ball back early in the fourth with a chance to take the lead, but
Kavin Prasanna came up with a big sack on 3rd-and-8 to force Pomona-Pitzer to punt. Litscher found Macapulay for 25 yards to put the ball in Sagehen territory, and then had a key seven-yard run on 3rd-and-7 to move the sticks. CMS stalled on the Sagehen 29-yard line, and Lee came through with a huge 46-yarder with 2:47 to go.
The Stag defense held Pomona-Pitzer to four-and-out, and Lee added one more field goal to his record-breaking day to make the final score 22-10.
Litscher finished 14-of-23 for 234 yards passing and also ran for 16 yards. Macapulay had four catches for 66 yards and Rattay had two for 79 yards, while
Quintin Craig added a 50-yard reception as well while finishing with two catches for 57 yards.
Andrew Carrasquillo and Prasanna each had six tackles, while
Tom Burton and
Evan Gerber had five, as CMS held Pomona-Pitzer to 278 yards of total offense.
The Stags will be back in action on Saturday when they host Cal Lutheran for a 7 p.m. contest.
