Florida 25 UGA 20
Gainesville, Florida
Saturday February 1, 2003, 10 am
Referee: Hugh Rhodes
The game was played on a wide, sandy, dusty field at the University of Florida (it was so dusty that we've decided we'll never think ours is dusty again). We started off poorly, missing tackles and playing soft. Florida kicked off, then stole the ball and after 2 minutes had a kickable penalty, which they made for a 3-0 lead. 5 minutes later they worked the ball and took it in for a try from 15 meters out. The kick was good for a 10-0 lead.
UGA moved the ball down and, off of a penalty at 5 meters, Josh Tedder popped to Matt Botwin who went over for the try. Marc Petrini converted to make it 10-7. A few minutes later Florida answered with a try by their scrumhalf to make the score 15-7. From that point on UGA controlled a lot of the ball and only some handling errors and stupid penalties kept us from scoring a couple more tries. As it was, Marc Petrini kicked 2 penalties to make it 15-13 at half time.
Florida scored early in the second half to make it 20-13, Brian Sanders blocked the conversion attempt. Florida then scored a try off some loose handling out wide, kicking a loose ball and chasing it 20 meters to touch down for a try to make it 25-13. Georgia responded at the 70th minute on a break down the left side when Kellen Montgomery somehow squeezed a pass out from between 2 defenders to Julian Harris, who danced through several Florida backs to touch down. Blake made the kick and it was 25-20.
In the last few minutes we were constantly on its own half of the field, at one point Florida looked like they had a sure try to ice the game but a nice tackle by Julian and quick thinking by Brian Sanders (our hooker, doing duty at wing) in kicking the ball into touch saved the try. We'd have a nice piece of play and it would like we were going to get something going, but we were unable to sustain any attack and time finally ran out on us.
All in all it was a promising performance for us. Our makeshift scrum not only held but stole several UF put-ins and won our own ball very solidly. We had some good breaks but turned the ball over many times at the tackle and Florida stole several rucks from us, which hurt us. We played a very hard game (after the first 15 minutes) and we all felt pretty optimistic about Sunday's game against Clemson.
In the other game of the day, Florida had a 4 hour break after the game and then had to play a rested Clemson side. Florida looked very tired and flat but still held a 10-8 lead at the half, but couldn't support its own breaks in the second half and Clemson scored a few tries to win 27-10.
| 1 Eric Rogers 2 Brian Sanders (Pete Bigham - 55th) 3 Josh Tedder 4 Seth Burrow 5 Ethan Beck (Rick Crowson - 45th) 6 Daniel Van Dijk 7 Pete Bigham (Brian Flaherty - 55th) 8 Matt Botwin 9 Josh Price (Michael Francis - 40th) 10 Michael Francis (Blake Richter - 40th) 11 Marc Thomas (Kevin Wilson - 40th) 12 Scott Hutchison 13 Blake Richter (Kellen Montgomery - 40th) 14 Marc Petrini (Brian Sanders - 55th) 15 Julian Harris |
 Daniel and Pete in support of a break |
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 Most of the team tries to get there to support Blake, whose skinny little self is up at the front, running for his life |
