Football Falls at Lehigh

Bethlehem, Pa. – First the good news for the Fordham University football Rams. Chase Edmonds rushed for 182 yards, his seventh straight 100-yard game, while Kevin Anderson threw for three touchdowns and ran for another. Now the bad news. Lehigh amassed 632 yards of total offense to overshadow the feats of Edmonds and Anderson and upend the Rams, 58-37, in a battle of unbeaten Patriot League teams in Goodman Stadium.
 
With the loss, Fordham falls to 5-3 overall on the year, 2-1 in the Patriot League, while Lehigh improves to 7-2 overall, 4-0 in the conference and now has the inside track to the conference title.
 
Edmonds' 182 yards brings his season total to an NCAA FCS-leading 1,426 and advances his school record of career 100-yard games to 24 and his career rushing yards total to 4,912.
 
Anderson completed 21 of 33 passes for 285 yards and the three touchdowns.
 
Senior linebacker George Dawson and senior punter Joe Pavlik broke a school record today with each appearing in his 48th career game. They broke the former mark of 47 set by Javarus Dudley (2000-03) and matched by Joe Sullivan (2011-14).
 

The game started slowly for Fordham as Lehigh scored on its first two possessions to take a 13-0 lead seven minutes into the game before the Rams moved 91 yards on ten plays, three of those rushes from Edmonds that combined to net 53 yards. Anderson capped the drive with a three-yard scoring run to cut the Fordham deficit to seven, 13-6.
 
A Lehigh field goal with just over a minute left in the first quarter made it a 16-6 game and the Rams opened the second quarter moving the ball to the Lehigh four where Edmonds was tackled for a loss of three on third down, forcing the Rams to settle for a 24-yard Makay Redd field goal.
 
The Mountain Hawks responded with an eight-play, 80-yard drive, capped by a 14-yard touchdown run, to take a 23-9 lead midway through the second quarter. On the first play of Fordham's ensuring possession, Edmonds was hit and fumbled, and the ball was recovered by Lehigh on the Fordham 34.
 
The defense seemed to have held Lehigh to a three-and-out but on third down a Fordham sack was nullified by a holding a call, giving the Mountain Hawks the ball on the Fordham 22. Four plays later the Mountain Hawks scored from three yards out to take a 30-9 lead with 5:45 on the clock.
 
The Ram offense was able to move the ball on its next series but the drive was halted at the Lehigh 15 and a 32-yard Redd field goal attempt went wide left.
 
It took Lehigh just two plays to cover the 80 yards following the missed field goal, the second a 70-yard scoring run, as the Mountain Hawks took a 37-9 lead at the half.
 
The Mountain Hawks scored twice over the first half of the third quarter to take a commanding 51-9 lead before Kendall Pearcey brought it to the end zone from the 18 to make it a 51-16 game with 4:42 left in the third.
 

Anderson connected with Jorge Solano on a 39-yard scoring strike early in the fourth but Lehigh capped its scoring with an eight-yard scoring run, the Mountain Hawk's sixth rushing score of the day, with 7:23 remaining.
 
Fordham scored twice over the final 7:03, the first an eleven-yard pass from Anderson to Isaiah Searight and the second a 46-yard toss from Anderson to Robbie Cantelli with 21 seconds left.
 
The Rams return to action next Saturday, November 5, as the Rams host the Colgate University Raiders in a Patriot League game on Jack Coffey Field at 1:00 p.m.
 
Notes
Anderson's 285 passing yards brings his career total to 4,891, good for sixth on the Fordham career list, while his three touchdown passes brings his career total to 51, third on the Fordham career list.
 
The loss snapped a three-game winning streak for the Rams against Lehigh.
 
Fordham is now 18-3 against Patriot League opponents over the past four years (the Rams were 5-1 last year, a perfect 6-0 in 2015 and 5-1 in 2013, though the games in 2013 did not count in the league standings).
 
Edmonds now has 24 100-yard rushing games, seven 200-yards rushing games and two 300-yard rushing games in his career, all school records.