By Ryan McCord

All Towson quarterback Sean Schaefer needed was one more shot.With future aspirations of becoming a firefighter, Towson’s signal caller showcased a blazing-hot right arm all night, and is no stranger to silencing the emergency alarms imposed by a Dave Cohen-led defense. Just when it looked like Hofstra could officially make Meow-Mix out of the Tigers late in the fourth quarter on Saturday, quarterback Anton Clarkson came up one-yard short on a third and eight scramble to the Towson 44-yard line. Cohen then decided to punt and trust his defense instead of gambling on a ground game that had amassed a season-high six yards-per-carry throughout the contest.”I just felt it was the right decision, if you looked at the percentages of going that far in two minutes, needing a touchdown,” Cohen said.With 2:42 left in the fourth quarter, the Tigers offense then had every coach on both sidelines reaching for their Maalox-filled flasks. Trailing by five points and 89 yards to pay dirt, Schaefer eventually guided the Tigers past the finish line on a fourth and 11-yard touchdown strike to wide receiver Eric Yancey with just 24 seconds left, completing an improbable comeback and giving Towson a 33-30 escape victory.”It’s a great feeling. Honestly, I kept thinking about Elway vs. the Browns,” said Schaefer, whose father is a firefighter in Washington, D.C. “It’s something you dream about as a kid, and to fulfill it is great.”No matter what the Pride threw at Schaefer defensively, he had an answer for it. His pocket presence was reminiscent of Tom Brady’s, and his accuracy and decision-making were a mirror image of Troy Aikman.The 6-foot-1, 215-pound sophomore quarterback from Dunkirk, Md., completed 43 of 60 passes for 458 yards and three scores to go along with no interceptions.The flair for the dramatic is nothing new to Schaefer, who led the Tigers to a pair of comeback wins in 2005 as a freshman, including a 35-31 thriller over Delaware, stifling Cohen, the former Blue Hen defensive coordinator.”It’s the second year in a row Schaefer broke my heart,” said Cohen, who won a national championship as an integral part of the Delaware coaching staff in 2003. “My hat’s off to the Towson staff, they did a great job keeping their kids together.”Cohen was pleased with the improvement of his offensive line and production in the running game, but acknowledged that the lack of execution throughout the ballgame ended up costing the Pride an upset bid in the end.Hofstra junior running back Kareem Huggins rushed with authority early and often, finishing with a game-high 122 yards on the ground, but his lost fumble in the first quarter, combined with Clarkson’s second quarter interception transformed into 13 Tiger points.Clarkson (15-for-30, 226 yards) never could get into any kind of rhythm in the pocket. Although he wasn’t sacked, a combination of rushed throws and dropped passes often seemed to take the wind out of the Pride’s sails as the game progressed.The ultimate back-breaker for the Pride, however, appeared to have been the lack of pressure in pass coverage. Even when Towson’s offensive play calling became as predictable as the sun setting in the west, Hofstra was just no match for Schaefer’s patience and ability to take what the Pride gave him defensively.”We made major strides in the run game,” said Cohen, whose Pride dropped to 1-2 overall on the season. “You saw a balanced offense and a physical offense. As good as that was, our pass defense was that disappointing.”Junior preseason All-American Gian Vilante (13 total tackles) teamed with fellow linebacker and freshman sensation Luke Bonus (12 total tackles, three passes deflected) in valiant efforts of keeping Towson’s running game (2.4 yards per carry) at bay.In a game full of “what ifs” and multiple factors that possibly persuaded the outcome, sometimes it’s best to just tip your hat to a quarterback who was not going to let his team lose.