EWING, N.J. - The SUNY Cortland football team guaranteed itself at least a share of the New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) title and earned the league's automatic berth into the NCAA Division III tournament with a 24-18 win at The College of New Jersey. The Red Dragons, ranked sixth nationally by the AFCA and seventh by D3football.com, are now 8-0 both overall and in the NJAC with one league game left and hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over either team, Rowan or Montclair State, that could finish tied with them.

Senior tailback Andrew Giuliano (Thornwood/Westlake) rushed 28 times for 160 yards and three touchdowns. He scored on a 10-yard run with 4:55 remaining and Cortland trailing 18-16 to provide the winning points. Giuliano set a new school single-season record with 17 rushing touchdowns and became the seventh player in school history to surpass 1,000 rushing yards in a season (currently 1,042).

Junior defensive end Bryan Wiley (Cape Vincent/Thousand Islands) recorded 10 tackles, including three of Cortland's five sacks, and blocked an extra point kick. Two of his sacks came on TCNJ's final two offensive plays to seal the victory after the Lions had driven into Cortland territory with less than a minute left.

Senior linebacker Jim Smith (Nanuet) made a game-high 14 tackles and sophomore Chris Hanlon (Patchogue/Patchogue-Medford) finished with 12 tackles. Senior quarterback Ray Miles (Port Byron) completed 12-of-23 passes for 193 yards, including four connections each with seniors Zacc Guaragno (Lansing) and Jeffrey Lang (Dryden).

TCNJ junior quarterback Bill Picatagi (Hamilton, NJ/Hamilton West), announced as the Lions' starter on game day, turned in a career-best performance by completing 24-of-31 passes for 192 yards and a touchdown. He also was TCNJ's leading rusher with 51 net yards and a touchdown on 18 carries. Junior Cameron Richardson (Burlington, NJ/Burlington Township) caught nine passes for 41 yards and junior Colin Weber (Scotch Plains, NJ/Scotch Plains-Fanwood) made four catches for 72 yards and a touchdown.

Cortland had an early scoring chance go by the boards when Lang missed a 34-yard field goal with 9:48 left in the first quarter. Later in the quarter, TCNJ mounted a 12-play, 81-yard drive capped on the first play of the second quarter by a Picatagi 5-yard touchdown run. The extra point failed.

Cortland's next two possessions resulted in turnovers inside the Lions' 30-yard line. Derrick Woodard (Whitesboro) returned the kickoff following Picatagi's touchdown 49 yards to the TCNJ 40-yard line, but two plays later from the 23-yard line Miles fumbled after a Craig Meyer (Far Hills, NJ/Bernards) sack. Cortland drove from its own 7-yard line to the TCNJ 11-yard line on its next possession, but Miles was intercepted by Dan Polles (Kinnelon, NJ) on 2nd-and-9. The play snapped Miles' streak of 117 straight pass attempts without an interception – his last picked-off pass came Sept. 27 at Kean.

The Red Dragons got on the board later in the second quarter with a 43-yard drive that featured a 29-yard Giuliano run, a 15-yard pass interference penalty and, eventually, a Giuliano 8-yard scoring run with 1:16 left to give Cortland a 7-6 lead. TCNJ, however, drove 80 yards in just seven plays and scored on Picatagi's 8-yard touchdown pass to Weber with six seconds left. Wiley blocked the extra point and TCNJ led 12-7 at the half, marking Cortland's first halftime deficit of the season.

Cortland regained the lead late in the third quarter on a Giuliano 2-yard run. A 39-yard pass from Miles to Guaragno to the TCNJ 16-yard line started the 5-play, 55-yard scoring drive. A two-point conversion pass attempt was intercepted (which does not count officially as an interception against Miles) and Cortland led 13-12 with 2:04 left in the period.

An 11-yard punt on the Lions' next drive gave the Red Dragons the ball at the TCNJ 36-yard line. Cortland's ensuing drive stalled at the 6-yard line and Lang made a 23-yard field goal to push the lead to 16-12.

The hosts answered with a 77-yard touchdown drive, highlighted by a 38-yard catch by Weber to the Cortland 18-yard line and a Picatagi 13-yard run to the 2-yard line. Chase Misiura (Holmdel, NJ) carried the final two yards for the score with 10:04 left. A high snap forced holder Zach Rinaldi to run for the two-point conversion but he was tackled easily short of the end zone and TCNJ led 18-16.

The Red Dragons started their winning drive after a touchback on the following kickoff. A 24-yard pass to Mike Lane (White Plains) and an 11-yard catch by Lang helped move the ball to the TCNJ 24-yard line. A holding call forced Cortland into a 1st-and-20 situation, but Giuliano ran for nine yards and Miles hit Eric Hajnos (Grand Island) on a 15-yard pass to give Cortland 1st-and-goal at the 10-yard line. Giuliano ran in on the next play, and a two-point pass from Miles to Guaragno put Cortland up 24-18 with 4:55 left.

TCNJ's final drive started on its own 20-yard line. Picatagi ran for six yards on 4th-and-4 from the TCNJ 39-yard line to keep the drive alive, and the Lions eventually moved the ball to the Cortland 45-yard line with under a minute left. Linebacker Josh Jablonski (West Seneca/West Seneca West) sacked Picatagi on first down and defensive end Ben Nagle (Rochester/Aquinas Institute) broke up a pass on second down. Wiley then posted back-to-back sacks on third and fourth downs to end the threat, and Cortland took a knee on the final snap to end the game.

Cortland held a 371-284 advantage in total offense, including a 178-88 edge on the ground. The Red Dragons can claim sole possession of the NJAC title with a win at home in their league finale versus Brockport next Saturday. Cortland tied for first in the NJAC standings in 2005, 2006 and 2007, but in each of those seasons lost the tiebreaker for the league's NCAA berth (to Rowan the first two years and to TCNJ last fall).

Cortland will be making its sixth NCAA Division III tournament appearance and its first since receiving an at-large berth in 2005. The 32-team national tournament begins on Saturday, Nov. 22, and the playoff pairings will be announced on Nov. 16.

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