Ivy Squads Prepare for the Real Thing

The non-league football schedule is over. In the past. Forgotten. It's time to concentrate on the real purpose of this season: the Ivy League.

With a win over Columbia in the season opener, Harvard is in a three-way tie for second place in the Ivy League with a 1-0 mark. Overall record? No need to discuss that anymore.

Saturday, the Crimson will take on defending co-champion Cornell on the bouncy Astroturf of Schoellkopf Field in Ithaca, N.Y. It's not going to be easy. But it's certainly not impossible.

Harvard should relax. Most of the Ivy teams have had their ups and (mostly) downs over the last few weeks. Cornell barely squeaked out a win over Lafayette last weekend--thanks to a field goal attempt that went two feet wide--and was shut out by Northeastern the week before. Both Princeton and Dartmouth fared worse against the Crusaders of Holy Cross than Harvard did. Penn barely beat winless Columbia last Saturday. And Brown is riding a 12-game losing streak.

And you thought there were problems in Cambridge?

Don't Forget Eli: Yale, however, hasn't had too bad a time.

True, the Elis did lose to Connecticut two weekends ago. But the team that couldn't score last season has switched to the wishbone and is now racking up an average of 25.3 points a game. Meanwhile, the tenacious defense that was the Eli trademark in '88 is still holding steady, limiting opponents to an average of 16 points a game.

Yale's only Ivy test so far has been Brown, not exactly the best team to use as a measure for anyone's Ivy chances.

Coming Home: The last time Harvard played in Ithaca was during its 1987 Ivy title-winning season. The game was--and will be again this year--Cornell's Homecoming contest.

In '87, the Big Red alums had plenty to cheer about. Harvard, Cornell and Brown entered the day undefeated in the Ivy League, and only Cornell emerged unscathed. The Big Red tallied a pair of late-game touchdowns--one on a 40-yd. interception return--to snag a 29-17 triumph.

It was Harvard's only league loss of the year.

Sidelined:Senior Mark Bianchi, the team's top receiver, joined the Crimson's growing list of injured players when he dislocated his finger Saturday. Bianchi is also suffering from a sore left shoulder.

Bianchi is questionable for the Cornell game, as is injured running back Jim Reidy (ankle) and Bobby Frame (leg). Senior back David Haller is out indefinitely with a broken hand.

"We're losing people every game," Harvard Coach Joe Restic said. "We're down in some positions to the point where we have to change formations. It hurts our game."

Where's My Mahon?: In the fourth quarter of the Lehigh game, Perry got caught in a squeeze and had to get rid of the ball fast. As the WHIR announcer reported to his listeners, the pass was "incomplete, intended for...well, the closest Crimson man to that pass was Gerald Mahon."

He was right. Mahon was the closest to the ball. Unfortunately, Mahon is an offensive guard--and, as such had never had a pass tossed at him in his three-year Harvard career.

There's a first time for everything.

Weird Play of the Week: In the third quarter of Saturday's game, Lehigh faked a punt at midfield and optioned the ball out to Peter Sczerbinski, who ran the ball past a confused Crimson contingent for a 50-yd. touchdown.

That's not all. On the PAT, Lehigh faked the kick--snapping the ball to quarterback Todd Brunner, who sent a pass to Sczerbinski. This time, however, the throw was incomplete.