Despite efforts to stage a comeback on the last day, Penn State fell to the Michigan State Spartans by 73 pints of blood in the 12th annual Penn State-Michigan State Blood Donor Challenge.

Penn State collected 1,879 pints to Michigan State's 1,952. This is the second consecutive year the Spartans have defeated the Nittany Lions.

"[Michigan State] did really well," Penn State Red Cross Club adviser Wendi Keeler said. "We weren't able to meet our goals at the drives on Monday or Tuesday. If we had come a little bit closer, we would have blown them out of the water."

Red Cross Club President Rami Horani said he believed Penn State lost partially because goals set for drives in the Intramural Building were not met. "Losing came down to the drives on Monday and Tuesday," Horani said. "We weren't able to perform as well as we had hoped there and couldn't make goal."

Although Penn State lost, the Red Cross Club collected 129 more pints this year than last year, and a new record for overall pints collected was set by both universities. "This is the highest amount of blood we have ever collected as a school. Both schools broke the combined record of pints collected by 147," said Justin Looyenga, Michigan State's donor recruitment representative.

The final drive allowed Penn State to begin a comeback, but time constraints forced the Red Cross Club to turn away more than 100 walk-ins at the HUB Alumni Hall on Thursday.

"We had 330 appointments and over 200 walk-ins on Thursday. The last-minute effort that was given was overwhelming, but it was a little too late," Keeler said.

The HUB drive allowed Penn State to collect more than 300 pints of blood and set the record for highest amount of blood collected on campus, Keeler said. "Over 11,000 lives will be saved between both schools as a result of the drives," Horani said.

Looyenga noted that the competition between the football teams gave Michigan State some incentive to win.

"We knew how well Penn State's football team has been performing, so we used it as motivation to win at something," Looyenga said. "If we couldn't win in football, we had to beat them somewhere."

Students who donated in the challenge were also participating in the Blood Cup, in which Penn State student groups compete to donate the most blood. Results of the Blood Cup won't be released until the first week in December, but Jenn Wilson, Red Cross Club education coordinator, said she was pleased with the turnout from all student organizations.

Red Cross Club student intern Aziz Ali said volunteering was a good experience because it let students from different groups work for the same cause. "It was more about donating than competition; people were usually in a good mood, and being there helped me to become less judgmental of other organizations," Ali said.

Blood collected will go to patients in the Greater Alleghenies and Great Lakes blood regions.