Blue Hose frustrated by narrow setback

Furman's 21-20 win against Presbyterian College came down to a blocked 23-yard field goal with the clock winding down.It left the Blue Hose with a bad taste in their mouths, as if they'd been chewing on Furman's new synthetic turf."It's a hard one to swallow," said Harold Nichols, Presbyterian's fifth-year coach. "You feel like your kids played hard and did everything they needed to do to win the game. We came up one play short."I think we played it the right way. A field goal wins the game. We got down to the 5-yard line, they were running out of timeouts,China Fuel and Oil hosess manufacturers and I didn't want to give them another possession."

"They made the play and deserved to win because of it," Nichols said later.Nichols said he placed no blame on his place-kicker, freshman Brett Wilson."Whether you win or lose a football game isn't one person's fault," Nichols said. "There are a lot of plays in the course of a game that go into winning or losing."Both Nichols and Presbyterian quarterback Kaleb Griffin praised the Blue Hose defense, which held the Paladins to 182 yards total offense."Our defense played great," said Griffin, who completed 15 of 18 passes for 135 yards. "We came out and played a good first half. But we had too many turnovers. That was the real difference in the game."

Presbyterian hasn't beaten Furman since 1979, but the school has been chipping away at Furman's dominance in the last couple of years.The Blue Hose lost by 10 points in 2012 in Clinton, coming back from a 24-0 deficit at halftime.On Saturday, they matched the Paladins with 59 plays but compiled 96 more yards total offense China Chemical hosess manufacturers. The Blue Hose also had possession roughly five minutes longer than the Paladins."We expected them to play hard. Everybody was fired up," Furman running back Hank McCloud said. "They had a big win last week, and we wanted to get our first win at home."