A strong defensive battle from the start led to a tightly contested game at the half, but the Ithaca Bombers scored two touchdowns in the second half to claim a 24-7 win over the St. Lawrence University football team on Saturday afternoon at Leckonby Stadium.

In a strong defensive showing, Ryan Surhoff and Colin Wanat each logged 10 tackles for SLU. Wanat also recorded a TFL and broke up two touchdown attempts in the end zone. Surhoff also forced a fumble, while Anthony Ferro picked up the fumble recovery, tallied nine tackles and a quarterback hurry.

Will Lederman passed for 173 yards on 18 completions with one touchdown and led the Saints on the ground with 28 yards. Nicholas Huhtala finished with six catches for 90 yards, while Shea Goodwin recorded eight for 41.

It was a game of defense from the get-go, as neither team scored in the opening quarter.

Ithaca was first to the end zone, as Matthew Parker connected with Nicholas Lang on a 25-yard pass and Caleb Wandell's kick was good for the 7-0 lead.

A little less than five minutes later, the Saints tied things up, as Lederman looked for Huhtala, scoring on a 35-yard touchdown pass. Clayton Fogler's kick was also good to knot things up at 7-7. With 33 seconds remaining in the half, Ithaca scored on a 27-yard field goal from Wandell for the 10-7 advantage.

The third quarter nearly matched the first in a battle of the defensive lines, but with one second remaining, Chris Scully ran for seven yards, making it 17-7 in favor of the Bombers.

Lang sealed the win for Ithaca with 1:47 to play in the final frame, this time with a six-yard pass from Michael Reed . Wandell finished 3-for-3 on PAT's for the 24-7 final.



Parker passed for 210 yards for the Bombers, going 18-for-30, while Scully led the run game with 124 yards and Lang caught 14 passes for 145 yards. Defensively, Ithaca was led by Sam Tourangeau's seven tackles, while Joe Spirra finished with five tackles, a sack for the loss of nine and an interception.  

Ithaca finished with a 24-12 spread in first downs, and recorded 401 total yards on offense to St. Lawrence's 242. The Bomber's finished 4-for-10 on third-down conversions, while the Saints went 4-for-15 on third downs and 1-of-3 on fourth-down chances.

With the loss, the Saints fell to 2-4 overall and 1-2 in Liberty League play, while Ithaca improved to 5-1 and 3-0, respectively. 

St. Lawrence is off next week and will return to action when they travel to Hobart on Saturday, October 25. Kickoff is scheduled for 1 p.m.