The football team (2–1) squeaked past Colby College (3–0) 24–16 this past weekend. The parents' weekend win came after a strong second half from the Panthers.
The game started off slow with the first five drives of the game all resulting in punts. The Panthers, though, started the scoring with around three minutes left in the first quarter. After starting the drive with a great field position on Colby’s 44 yard line, the Panthers took a 3–0 lead after Zach Levy ’25 kicked a 44 yard field goal. However, Middlebury’s lead was short lived as the Mules quickly responded with a field goal of their own to tie the game 3–3 before the end of the quarter.
Middlebury quickly retook the lead in the second quarter. In the Panthers’ first drive of the quarter, quarterback Aidan Moss ’27 connected with Patrick Jamin ’25 on a 27-yard touchdown pass. Unfortunately for the Panthers, the Mules stormed back again. They scored another touchdown before the end of the second quarter to tie the game 10–10. With two minutes left in the half, both teams had promising drives and threatened to score. But, both drives ended in interceptions, keeping the score tied going into the half.
In the third quarter, Middlebury finally took the lead for good. Ten minutes into the third quarter, Brian Moran ’26, in at quarterback, threw his first touchdown pass of the day. He threw a 40 yard pass to Ethan Vashel ’25 to give the Panthers the lead. The Panthers continued to put the pressure on Colby. In the fourth quarter, Moran completed a pass to Jamin that resulted in a 65 yard touchdown, giving the Panthers a 24–10 lead.
Colby did score one more touchdown before the end of the game, but it was far too little too late. The Middlebury defense played strong and secured the Panthers’ win. Charlie Grant ’27 led the team with nine solo tackles, and Michael Votta ’27 had an interception. On offense, Moran had a total of two touchdown passes and 248 passing yards by the end of the game, and Jamin led the team with 113 receiving yards and two receiving touchdowns.
The Panthers victory came as a continuation of the team’s positive mentality after they lost the first game of the season to Wesleyan 43–7. The team has now won two consecutive games since their opening day loss.
“Our motto is ‘1-0,’” which means staying focused on the moment and winning at everything we do. We didn’t start off the season the way we were hoping to but our goal now is to put that behind us and focus on each Saturday as they come,” Moran wrote to The Campus. “That means whether it’s in the classroom, film room, weight room, or on the field, we need to win at everything we are doing to put us in the best position for game day.”
The team travels to Massachusetts this weekend to play Amherst (2–1). The Panthers return home the week of Oct. 12 to play Williams (2–1).
