Defense Overwhelms Quakers, 17-6

The Quakers were cocky. And deservedly so.

Winners of 13 straight Ivy league contests, including a 38-7 massacre of Harvard last year, the Penn Quakers were looking Saturday to clinch their fourth consecutive Ancient Eight crown.

But an emotional Harvard squad never gave the Quakers a chance. The charged-up Crimson scraped together its formidable guts and heart to thrash the Quakers, 17-6, before more than 18,000 boisterous fans at the Stadium.

With the victory, Harvard (7-2, 5-1 Ivy) caught Penn atop the Ivy League. All that now stands between the Crimson and a share of the Ivy League crown is a victory over Yale next week in The Game.

And if Penn (6-2-1, 5-1 Ivy) loses to lowly Dartmouth next week and the gridders win, the Crimson will take home its first outright Ancient Eight title since 1975.

Harvard fought brutally and relentlessly for the victory Saturday, steamrolling Penn by beating them when it counted most. "The team hasn't changed," Harvard Coach Joe Restic said of his troops. "They're just a great group and they have character and they'll battle you."

Down in the trenches, where the big men were slugging it out, the battle lines were drawn early. And Harvard had Penn on the retreat all day long.

The Crimson earned will over 200 yards on the ground, the lion's share of which was picked up by the Saint--fullback Robert Santiago (108 yards). And the offensive line held the Penn defense to only two sacks of quarterback Brian White (68 yards rushing).

"We played very well," said offensive tackle George Kostakos, the senior member of the inexperienced line.

On the other side of the ball, the Harvard defense held the vaunted Penn rushing attack to a mere 133 yards and forced three key Quaker fumbles.

That was the story of the game early on, as Penn took the ball on its second position and drove 63 yards to the Harvard 25. But highly-touted Penn back Rich Comizio--who iced Penn's victory over Harvard last year with a kickoff return for a touchdown--fumbled, and the Crimson took over.

The Quakers didn't even another first down until midway through the fourth quarter. And while the defense once again shut the opposition down, the Harvard offense began to put points on the scoreboard.

First, kicker Rob Steinberg--who had a marvelous day booting the ball, alternating booming punts with coffin corner placements--split the uprights with a 35-yards field goal midway through the second period.

Seven minutes later, Harvard upped the tally to 10-0 on one of this season's bread-and-butter plays, the split and reverse.

This time, however, the play almost broke before it got started. White pitched the ball to Santiago--who was supposed to hand the ball to wide out Joe Connolly, sprinting across from the far side.

But Santiago was pressured by the Penn defense and had to pitch the pigskin to Connolly. No matter, though because the junior split end encountered no Quaker defenders as he held the ball aloft and sauntered five yards into the endzone.

White was not suprised. "Robert did a great job because he got pressure from the strong safety, and Joe Connolly did a great job getting into the endzone," he sad. "The play just makes a lot of sense. It's great call and it worked."

Harvard, taking a 10-0 lead into the locker room at halftime, took Penn right out of their game. "I have to be pleased with the way we controlled the early part of the ballgame," Restic said.

The Quakers' strength all season has been its rushing game, but faced with a 10-point deficit, Penn had to take to the air. And Harvard stuffed the, coming up with three crucial interceptions.

"Our secondary is second to none," said Captain Brent Wilkinson, who picked off one of Penn quarterback Jim Crocicchia's passes himself.

And when White dove into the endzone late in the third period to give the Crimson an insurmountable 17-0 advantage, it was obvious that Harvard--which was the last Ivy team to beat Penn, shutting them out 28-0 in 1983--had stopped Penn's record-threatening Ivy League winning streak. Not even Penn Coach Jerry Berndt's Lou Carnesecca-style sweater was lucky enough to stop Harvard's eventual triumph.

The only real question left was whether the consistently tough Harvard defense would earn its first shutout of the season. The swarming Crimson defense whipped up a wild Harvard crowd, which actually cheered loudly enough to stop play on a key Penn fourth down attempt in the final period.

But the shutout was not to be, as eight consecutive Crocicchia passes resulted in a Quaker touchdown with 38 seconds left in the contest.

"We wanted to shut those guys out very bad," Wilkinson said afterwards. "we came up 38 seconds short. Doggone."

Shutout or not, the Crimson still beat Berndt, who is widely considered the best coach in the Ivy League. Despite winning three league crowns in his first four years--including his notorious 1982 title, when the Quakers beat Harvard, 23-21, in a controversial finish--Berndt has never won in the Stadium.

After the drama Saturday, the two locker rooms were a study in contrast. "It's morbid in there right now. They [the Penn players] know Harvard played better than they did," Berndt said after the game.

The Harvard resembled room, on the other hand, resembled a bigwig bash. Among the guests were President Derek C. Bok (who gave a postgame speech), Vice President Daniel Steiner '54, Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57, and former football Captain Steve Abbott.

When the celebration had ended, the Crimson knew that it was in control of its own destiny this season. And that destiny will be shaped next week, in the 102nd edition of The Game. IVY STANDINGS Team  W  L  T HARVARD  5  1  0 Penn  5  1  0 Princeton  4  2  0 Brown  3  3  0 Dartmouth  2  3  1 Yale  2  3  1 Cornell  2  4  0 Columbia  0  6  0