ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Despite a 300-yard day through the air by senior Patch Flanagan, the Union College football team came up one score short in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, falling by a 34-26 score to Muhlenberg College on Saturday afternoon at Scotty Wood Stadium.
 
Playing in his final game, Flanagan gutted out another excellent performance for Union (8-3), completing 26-of-34 passes for 300 yards and three touchdowns, while also running for 41 yards and a score. Senior Dan Quinn and junior Joe Curran both led the team with 73 receiving yards, with Curran and seniors Gil Rivera and Cam Fries all on the receiving end of one touchdown pass each.
 
Luke Spang completed 24 of 31 passes for 241 yards and three touchdowns, two of which went to Aidan Mack. Dante Mahaffey rushed for a team-best 37 yards and scored a touchdown for Muhlenberg (9-2) as well.
 
After both teams punted on their opening possession, Union got the ball back on the 20-yard line and went the length of the field in just five plays. Following a completion to Curran and back-to-back receptions by Quinn, Curran hauled in a 47-yard touchdown from Flanagan to put the visitors on the board first. However, in what would become a theme on the day, Muhlenberg immediately responded with an 11-play drive that evened the score at seven.
 
The Garnet Chargers regained the lead with a 10-play drive that traversed 76 yards. A 35-yard reception by junior Owen Corrigan got the visitors into the red zone, and two rushes by Flanagan set up a two-yard touchdown pass to Fries that gave Union a 14-7 advantage less than two minutes into the second quarter. But the Mules again had an answer on the subsequent drive, knotting the score on a nine-yard touchdown pass from Spang to Caleb Pasols. The teams traded three-and-outs for the next five drives before Muhlenberg had its last drive stopped by the end of the second quarter.
 
The momentum of the game turned at the start of the third quarter. Muhlenberg got the ball first and took its first lead on an Andrew Deutsch 25-yard field goal. On the next drive, junior Cole Brisson went under center and had a third-down pass intercepted and returned all the way to the nine-yard line, with the home team needing just two plays to reach pay dirt and take a 24-14 lead.
 
Chasing the lead for the first time all afternoon, Union got back within a score on the next possession when Flanagan capped a 13-play, 86-yard drive with a six-yard touchdown run to get back within four at 24-20 at the end of the third. However, a long completion on the first play of Muhlenberg's next drive set the home team up in the red zone and Mack caught a four-yard touchdown pass to bump the lead back up to 11.
 
The touchdowns continued for both sides, with Flanagan connecting with Rivera on a 35-yard touchdown strike to again get the visitors within a score, making it a five-point game after the two-point conversion attempt failed. But the defense could not come up with a needed stop, as the Mules drove 11 plays in 6:35 to kick a field goal and take an eight-point lead with 1:38 on the clock.
 
Needing to go 73 yards with no timeouts, Union got to the 43-yard line before two incompletions and an interception on third down sealed the win for Muhlenberg.
 
The loss ends Union's 2025 season, which saw the Garnet Chargers return to the top of the Liberty League with the program's ninth conference title and 14th NCAA Tournament appearance.