Box Score GAMBIER, Ohio – The Kenyon College football team's remarkable season came to a close Saturday at McBride Field with a 22-13 loss to the visiting Denison University Big Red. The defeat, Kenyon's only loss at home, capped a 2012 campaign that saw the Lords rebound from back-to-back winless seasons and post a winning record for the first time since 2005.

Denison (4-6, 4-3 NCAC) got out to a quick start, scoring a pair of first-quarter touchdowns. The first was a four-yard pass from Max Paulus to Nick Keller and the second was a five-yard run by Sam Fioroni. In between those two scores, Kenyon got on the board with a 25-yard touchdown run from receiver Carlo Gagliardo.  After faking a handoff up the middle, quarterback Dan Shannon dished the ball off to Gagliardo, who was in motion from right to left. Gagliardo then collected the ball and broke loose around the left corner before diving into the corner of the end zone.

The Big Red kept it coming in the second quarter, but this time Kenyon had no answer. Matt Puracchio booted a 24-yard field goal and Fioroni hauled in a ten-yard touchdown pass to put Denison in front, 22-7, at the half.

Fioroni, the North Coast Athletic Conference's leading rusher, proved too difficult for the Lords to contain. He ended up running the ball 34 times for 133 yards. He also caught eight passes for 35 yards.

Meanwhile, Kenyon (6-4, 5-2 NCAC) was only able to rush for 57 yards against the Big Red's line. Senior Brett Williams carried the ball 19 times for 52 yards. That gave him 1,032 rushing yards for the season, which is the seventh-best, single-season mark in the program's history. His career total of 2,195 rushing yards is Kenyon's fifth-best.

Shannon, another Kenyon senior, completed 19-of-29 passes for 160 yards and a fourth-quarter touchdown to Greg McIntosh.  Shannon exits the program ranked third all-time in pass completions (535) and sixth all-time in passing yards (4,807). Additionally, he set the new Kenyon career record for pass completion percentage (.582), breaking the old mark of .571 set by Chris Creighton.

Kenyon had a couple of opportunities late in the game to catch up with the Big Red, but only one came to fruition. In the third quarter, a Kenyon punt was fumbled by Denison and recovered by Kolin Sullivan on the Big Red's 16-yard line. The Lords offense worked its way down to the Denison eight-yard line, but stalled there and then had a 25-yard field goal attempt blocked.

On Denison's next possession, a high snap from center eluded Paulus and was recovered by Kenyon's Marquis Johnson on the Big Red's 29-yard line. The Lords made sure to capitalize on the turnover this time. They put together a 10-play drive that ended with Shannon's three-yard scoring strike to McIntosh with 4:50 left in the game. The extra point sailed wide left and put a lid on all scoring.

The Lords went on to attempt an on-side kick, but the ball bounced right by several Denison players and found its way, untouched, out-of-bounds. From there, Denison worked the clocked and stopped Kenyon on its final two hurried possessions.

Defensively, the Lords gave up 235 first-half yards to Denison, but bounced back by yielding just 45 yards of offense in the second half. Both cornerback Zachary Morrow and linebacker Reed Franklin made 11 tackles. Sullivan wound up with ten stops and finished the season with 108 tackles, a total that not only led all Kenyon players, but all players in the NCAC.