It was a roller coaster of emotions this week for the Sagehen’s football team.

The young team, featuring twice as many freshmen as seniors, was on top of the world after a fourth quarter comeback victory against Oberlin College in Ohio.

However Saturday’s home opener ended with a much different result.

With the prior week’s national tragedy still on their minds, the Hens were out of sync offensively and left the field with a frustrating 17-12 defeat at the hands of Colorado College.

Pomona-Pitzer opened the season in Ohio versus the Yeomen of Oberlin College, and escaped with a dramatic 25-21 win, scoring the go-ahead touchdown with 1:59 to play in regulation.

The Sagehens trailed 14-7 entering the fourth quarter, but outscored the Yeomen 18-7 in the period, including 12 unanswered points to end the game.

The defining moment came on an Oberlin punt, when James Nachtwey ’02 and Joseph Cappola ’05 executed a picture-perfect reverse. Nachtwey fielded the punt and started running to his right, but then handed the ball off to Cappola, who used a wall of Pomona blockers to scamper down the left sidelines and into the endzone for a 43-yard, game-winning touchdown.

"We clearly could have won more convincingly, but it was a long plane trip to Ohio and we didn’t come out ready to play. I give great credit to the kids for pulling it out in the fourth quarter," said Sagehen’s head coach Roger Caron.

The following Saturday against Colorado College, the ‘Hens tried to pull out yet another last second comeback.

Trailing 17-12 with 1:23 left in regulation, Pomona-Pitzer had moved the ball from its own 17 to the Colorado College 35. With only seconds to go, they had two cracks at the end zone. Two desperation passes were made by quarterback Matt LaCoss ’02. Two balls looked destined for the hands of intended receivers. Two pigskins eventually fell harmlessly to the ground.

The game was a defensive struggle from the opening kickoff. Both teams were held to under 100 yards passing, and each team was barely able to amass a meager 200 yards of total offense.

The Sagehens capitalized on a first quarter turnover by Colorado. On a Pomona-Pitzer punt, Colorado kick returner Andy Cornell had the ball slip through his fingers on his own 20 yard line. The ball was recovered by Sagehen Adam Perlaky ’04. Six plays later, runningback Jeremy Lim ’03 punched it into the endzone from 3 yards out, giving P-P a 6-0 lead. It was his first of two eventual touchdowns during the afternoon, which accounted for all of Pomona-Pitzer‘s scoring.

P-P’s offense was stagnant for the remainder of the half, going into halftime with only 57 yards of total offense and trailing 7-6.

The Sagehen defense kept the team in the game for the entire 60 minutes.

Led by defensive lineman Bobby Boeche ‘03’s 3 sacks, the defense chased Colorado College quarterback Jay Macias all afternoon, sacking him a total of 6 times and holding the team to a pitiful 3.0 yards per play.

The Hens offense, however, had trouble maintaining any drive for an extended period of time, turning the ball over 3 times and losing the time of possession battle by over 17 minutes.

Colorado College wore down the Pomona-Pitzer defense with a steady dose of running back Paul Sage, who carried the ball 36 times for 130 yards and accounted for more than half of their total offense.

"This game was definitely a wake-up call for our team. We need to practice hard and improve our execution," said Lim.

The game was played under awkward circumstances, with the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington D.C. having occurred only four days earlier. Due to a national stoppage of air travel, Colorado College was forced to take buses all the way from Colorado Springs.

One also had to question if the players had their entire focus on the game.

"I don’t think it was right for us to be playing. There were more important things happening in the world than football. That said, when the game came, we were all focused on the task at hand," said running back John Samples ’04.

The offensive stats, however, tell a different story. After gaining well over 400 yards of total offense at Oberlin, Pomona-Pitzer barely managed 200 against Colorado. Individually, Samples ran for 113 yards and 2 touchdowns in Ohio, but only gained 38 the next week. Sagehen wide receivers dropped several passes against Colorado, and LaCoss was off his game, throwing for only 90 yards on 8 completions.

"We need work on our passing game, but we are running the ball pretty well and our defense is stopping people. All in all we just aren’t playing to our potential," said Samples.

But with a young team and an upcoming game at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, players are still optimistic.

"We have a lot of potential and a ton of young talent. We just need to continue to improve and hopefully we can grow into it," said Lim.