Gettysburg maintains hold of the bucket
Junior Fred Pulzello’s 38-yard pass from senior Zach Miller put Gettysburg ahead for good at Dickinson. (Photo courtesy of David Sinclair, GCC&M.)
By Kymberly Deane, Contributing Writer
After a grueling battle against longtime rivals, Dickinson’s Devils, the Bullets managed to maintain their tight grasp on the Little Brown Bucket on Saturday afternoon at their opponent’s Biddle Field. An impressive score early in the fourth quarter led to a 36-27 win and possession of the Bucket.
The extremely competitive but fun rivalry continued this year with its 80th meeting with Dickinson. The Bullets (4-5, 4-4 CC) got their second consecutive win this year. Although last year’s game proved to be an easy sweep with the 42-7 score against the Devils, this year they made it a point to show how badly they wanted to reclaim the Bucket.
After the team traded punts to open the game, the Red Devils struck quickly as Cole Ahnell broke a 65-yard run to put Dickinson on the board at the 9:37 mark of the first quarter. The drive took just three plays on their second drive of the game to cover 65 yards into the end zone for a 7-0 lead. Gettysburg covered 66 yards and drove down to the two-yard line of the Red Devils, but they held, forcing a short field goal by Garrett Long with 4:57 on the clock.
Following a three-and- out by Dickinson, the Bullets piled up 44 yards on the ground with senior running back Nick Ulassin running in from three yards out to set the visitors ahead 10-7 at the end of the opening quarter of play. Senior quarterback Zach Miller added runs of 17 and nine yards on the drive as well.
The Devils thought they had recovered a fumble on a punt, but the Bullets took over on their own 10-yard line. Miller and Ullasin combined forces to lead Gettysburg on a 15-play, 90-yard drive, capped by a six-yard pass to Fred Caruso for a 17-7 lead with 9:03 to play in the half. The Red Devils picked up a 33-yard field goal by Adam Kaminski and capped the half with a 32-yard pass from Ahnell to Devin Gaby to cut the deficit to 23-17 at the break.
Dickinson’s first possession of the third quarter killed more than eight minutes and contained 14 plays covering 93 yards. Ahnell and Cedric Madden contributed to a damaging 10-yard scoring strike, which placed the Devils ahead of the game 24-23 with 5:39 to go in the third period.
Although the Bullets were slow to score in the third quarter, they fought back with the first possession of the fourth as Zach Miller found senior tight end Fred Pulzello for a 38-yard reception to put the Bullets in front 29-24. The ensuing two-point conversion failed.
With just five minutes left in the game and a series of short gains by both the Bullets and the Devils, Gettysburg put their all into playing the short field with Zach Miller converting on a 13-yard run to up the lead to 36-27 with just over a minute remaining.
Gettysburg claimed the Bucket with 427 yards of total offense, including 280 on the ground. The Bullets also picked up 31 first-downs, compared to 18 for the hosts and remarkably finished 10-of-16 on third-down conversions, converting all five red-zone opportunities.
Gettysburg will close the regular season at home against Franklin & Marshall College (5-4, 4-4 CC) on Saturday, Nov. 15, at 1 p.m. This will mark the final game for the Bullets’ seniors and the 100th meeting between the two rivals. For the first time, the winner of this game and every meeting going forward will receive an award called the “Lincoln Football Trophy.” The series, which began in 1890, is tied 46-46-7.
