Kalamazoo, MI – The Oberlin College football team rallied from a 19-point third-quarter deficit to tie the game at 29, but a late touchdown by the Kalamazoo College Hornets proved to be the difference as they held off the Yeomen 36-29.
 
Freshman quarterback Zach Taylor was impressive in his collegiate debut, throwing for 306 yards and four touchdowns on 15-of-27 passing. The Artesia, California, native was also intercepted once, but did account for 370 yards of offense as he added 64 yards on the ground on 28 attempts.
 
Senior Justin Cruz was Taylor's top target he snagged nine balls for 170 yards and two scores. Sophomore Robby Reinheimer also added 83 yards on four catches.
 
It was a good news-bad news game for the Yeomen as while the offense was impressive with 448 yards, the offensive line still surrendered seven sacks and as a team they got flagged 20 times for 165 yards.
 
Defensively, the Yeomen could not contain the Hornets' duo of quarterback Alex White and wide receiver Collin Feilla. White threw for 409 yards and three touchdowns. Feilla was on the other end of those throws 10 times as he totaled 216 yards and a touchdown of his own. Lorenzo Redman added 86 yards on the ground that went towards the 595 allowed by Oberlin in the loss.
 
The good news for the Oberlin defense was that they did have four takeaways with three fumble recoveries and an interception to go along with a blocked kick as well.
 
The Yeomen tied the game with 6:19 left in the fourth quarter as Taylor and Cruz went up top for a 70-yard scoring connection. Taylor would then add the two-point conversion to even the score.
 
K'Zoo responded with an 8-play, 64-yard drive that took 2:51 off the clock. It was Clay Wilkey who ran in from 12 yards out for what ultimately was the game-winning score.
 
The Yeomen took over with 3:28 left to play, but a key holding penalty effectively short-circuited the drive. The Hornets were looking to add an insurance score, but Anthony Allen forced Wilkey to fumble at the goal line and rookie Justin Godfrey fell on top of it. With just 29 seconds and 99 yards away the Yeomen couldn't find a miracle score to extend the game.
 
Oberlin held an early 7-0 lead as Taylor orchestrated a 12-play, 75-yard drive that was capped off with 26-yard TD toss to sophomore Jabari Clemons.  However, the Hornets responded with 26 unanswered points before the Yeomen would get back on the board.
 
Late in the third quarter, it was Ryan Gleeson who found the endzone as he hauled in a 32-yard scoring strike from Taylor to get Oberlin back within 12, 26-14.
 
Trailing 29-14 in the fourth quarter, the Yeomen defense came up big as freshman Von Wooding forced a fumble of White and Kenny Williams covered it up to put the Yeomen in business deep in Kalamazoo territory.  Three plays later Taylor and Cruz hooked up from 19 yards to get Oberlin back within one possession at 29-21 with 9:20 still left on the clock.
 
Oberlin would then force the Hornets to punt, which setup Cruz for the game-tying touchdown, but unfortunately the Yeomen defense could not keep K'zoo off the board one last time.
 
Allen, who also added a sack to his force fumble, matched sophomore Brendan Mapes with a team-high 10 tackles.
 
Oberlin will look to clean up some areas of concern throughout the week before opening conference play next Saturday at Kenyon College. Kickoff from Gambier, Ohio is set for 1 p.m.