Sooper Bowl College Football Final – Guilford 22, Greensboro 12

Greensboro, N.C. – Guilford College won its fourth straight Gate City Soup Bowl Saturday night with a 22-12 win over visiting crosstown-rival Greensboro College. The Quakers increased their lead in the season series to 7-5 before an estimated crowd of 3,100 fans.

The teams combined for 10 turnovers in their season opener, including six by Guilford. Quakers’ game Most Valuable Player Danny Langston had six tackles, two fourth-quarter interceptions and broke up four passes.

Senior Torrey Lowe earned his rivalry-record third game Most Valuable Player Award for the Pride. He had eight receptions for 106 yards and a third-quarter touchdown catch from Mike Caparaso that accounted for the game’s lone second-half points.

Guilford quarterback Josh Vogelbach completed 30-of-40 passes for 340 yards and two touchdowns, but was picked off four times, three off of deflected balls. On the game’s first offensive play, he connected with Kevin Vaughn off a flea-flicker for a 60-yard touchdown and a quick 6-0 Guilford lead.

Brian Richardson returned the first Greensboro interception 33 yards, which set up Mike Caparaso’s 11-yard scoring run to tie the game.

The Quakers took a 22-6 halftime thanks to an eight-yard scoring stroke from Vogelbach to Chad Kastor and Justin Parker’s 10-yard touchdown run late in the period.

Andreas Platt’s recorded Greensboro’s second end-zone interception midway through the third quarter, which set up an 11-play, 80-yard Greensboro scoring drive. After converting a fourth-down pass to Charlie Johnson down to Guilford’s four-yard line, Caparaso connected with Lowe for the Pride’s second touchdown of the game that pulled the guests to within 10.

Neither team scored in a turnover-filled final quarter. Langston recorded both of his interceptions and had two key pass breakups in the period. Guilford’s defense allowed just one third-down conversion and held on both of the Pride’s fourth-down plays in the period.

Kastor finished with a game-high 11 receptions for 116 yards and Vaughn added 105 receiving yards on seven catches. Junior Jon McKinney made four catches for 69 yards, both career highs. Guilford rolled up 456 total offensive yards and Vogelbach passed for over 300 yards for the 21st time in his 31-game career. Richie Paul had a team-high 10 tackles, plus an interception for Guilford.

Caparaso threw for 224 yards and a touchdown, but was also intercepted four times. Lowe’s eight catches led the team. Rodney Beasley rushed nine times for a game-high 41 yards. Michael Witherspoon made a game-best 11 tackles from his cornerback position.

Guilford also won the Soup Bowl Cup, awarded to the winner of the canned-food collection competition between the two schools. The Quakers collected 7,147 of the 8,887 food items raised between the two schools, which this year benefitted the Servant Center of Greensboro and the Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina.