It was a tale of two halves for Pace Football on Friday night at Pace Stadium. The team came home this week following a 28-7 loss to Millersville and hoped to get back on track vs Assumption College.

The game got off to a bad start as starting left tackle Jorge Geronimo went down on the first play of the game with an injury. Head Coach Andy Rondeau stated that the team does not know the extent of his injury and will examine him within the next couple of days.

Quarterback (QB) Jason Habash went five of 13 for 28 yards and threw an interception in the first quarter. For the second week, Habash looked out of sync as the offense struggled to get anything started. This prompted the coaching staff to insert QB Dan Anerella into the game with 3:51 in the second quarter.

Rondeau spoke about his decision to go with a different quarterback.

“It just wasn’t going well and there’s a lot of guys that deserve opportunities to get a shot,” Rondeau said. “Things like this throw you right into the middle of a quarterback controversy but we’ve got to find a guy. It wasn’t going, it’s just some things that [Habash] was not gelling with, some things that just were out of sorts right there so we tried to stabilize it with another guy.”

When Anerella came into the game the offense started to move the ball down the field successfully. The Setters began to run the ball efficiently with six and 9-yard gains from Running Back (RB) Delaney Wallace and a 15-yard rush by RB Michael Scotman.

In the second half, Pace continued to pound the ball with Scotman and Wallace. During the drive, Anerella completed a 21-yard pass to WR Mohammad Masoud to give Pace some momentum. The team scored their first points of the night with 9:52 left in the third quarter as Kicker Pat Davis’ hit the first successful field goal of his career.

With the game well at hand for Assumption, the Setters began to take advantage in the fourth quarter as RB Jhalen Bien-Aime took a handoff 60 yards for the Setters first touchdown (TD) of the game. On the ensuing drive for Pace, they scored again on a one-yard run by Wallace with two minutes left.

Wallace commented on his performance and said he wanted to make sure he “set a good tempo” for the rest of the team.

“It’s really about just tempo and effort. My main focus was to give maximum effort all the time. We were facing the eighteenth ranked team in the nation and the only way we’re going to compete is if we give maximum effort,” Wallace said.

Rondeau said that the team lost their spirit during the first half but tried to regain it during the second half.

“In the second half it was a time to regroup and guys regained some spirit,” Rondeau said. “We learned a lot about who will battle, scrap, and fight for us and about others who are more challenged by that and aren’t yet ready for that. They are on their journey to and well bring them with us. We just have to make sure that we don’t put too much on their plate.”

Bien-Aime led the team in rushing for the second week in a row with 67 yards on three carries and one TD Wallace followed with 65 yards on 18 carries and one TD.

Anerella played well coming in to relieve Habash. He went four of 12 for 47 yards passing.

The Setters will hit the road next week to face American International College in Springfield, Massachusetts. Kickoff is set for 12:00 pm.