The Case Western Reserve University football team suffered a 42-40 loss to the Saint Vincent College Bearcats on the road in Latrobe, Pennsylvania on Saturday afternoon.

The loss dropped the Spartans to 2-3 overall, including a 1-3 record in the Presidents' Athletic Conference, while Saint Vincent improved to 3-1 overall with a 2-1 mark in league play.

Despite the loss, a number of CWRU players posted impressive statistical totals on the day. Senior quarterback Drew Saxton completed 40-of-65 pass attempts for 462 yards and a pair of touchdowns, setting school records for completions and attempts, and notching the second-most passing yards in a game, behind only Eli Grant's 492 against Washington University (Mo.) in 2002. Senior wide receiver Colt Morgan caught 15 passes for 195 yards, matching a school-record for receptions in a game set four times previous, most recently by Morgan in 2018 against Saint Vincent. Junior wide receiver Lucas DeCaro added seven catches for 119 yards, including a 73-yard touchdown catch early in the fourth quarter. Junior running back Antonio Orsini ran for two touchdowns and caught a third on Saturday and has a team-high seven touchdowns this season.

The Spartans jumped out to another early lead on Saturday, going ahead 7-0 with 9:29 to play in the first quarter on a two-yard touchdown run by Orsini on the Spartans' opening drive. Later in the quarter, first-year linebacker Nate Cikalo blocked a punt at the goal line and recovered it in the end zone, giving CWRU a 14-0 lead with 1:16 left in the first quarter.

The lead remained 14-0 until the closing minutes of the first half, when Saint Vincent got on the board with a seven yard touchdown pass from Brady Walker to Antonio Zambrano with 1:09 left in the second quarter, cutting the Spartans' lead to 14-7 heading into the break. The Bearcats tied the game on an 11-yard pass from Walker to Phil Harding with 11:30 left in the third quarter, and then took the lead on a 35-yard interception return for a touchdown by Joanes Polynice on the Spartans' next drive.

Orsini helped the Spartans even the score at 21-21 with a three-yard touchdown run with 3:32 to play in the third, but Saint Vincent regained the lead on a five-yard run by Julian Howard early in the fourth quarter. CWRU quickly responded with a 73-yard strike from Saxton to DeCaro, but a missed extra point kept the Bearcats in the lead 28-27.

Saint Vincent added to its lead with a four-yard run by Billy Beck with 9:44 to play. The Spartans answered again, this time on a one-yard run by sophomore running back Sean-Michael James, but could not convert the two-point try to even the score, and trailed 35-33 with 5:07 left to play. Another touchdown run by Beck, this time a 48-yard scamper with 1:58 left to play, essentially put the game out of reach for the Spartans.

CWRU made one last attempt at a comeback, driving 70 yards in 1:32 and scoring on a five-yard pass from Saxton to Orsini to cut the Saint Vincent advantage to 42-40 with 20 seconds left. But, an ensuing on-side kick attempt was recovered by the Bearcats, and without any timeouts remaining for the Spartans, Saint Vincent was able to run out the clock on the victory.

Case Western Reserve will now head into its bye week with three-straight losses. The Spartans will return to the field on Saturday, October 16, hosting Bethany College at DiSanto Field in Cleveland with kickoff scheduled for 2:00 p.m.