Football beats Princeton, moves into 5 way tie for Ivy lead.

PRINCETON N.J.--Facing a must-win game against Princeton on Saturday, the Harvard football team relied on junior quarterback Neil Rose to pull out a 35-21 win in the fourth quarter.

With the win, Harvard moves into a five-way tie atop the Ivy standings with Cornell, Princeton, Penn and Yale.

At the end of the third quarter, with Harvard leading 21-14, the Crimson faced a fourth down with five yards to go on the Princeton 35-yard line.

Rose, who completed 25-of-36 passes for 292 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions on the day, dropped to pass and saw senior tight end Chris Stakich open in the flat. As he threw, Tigers senior outside linebacker Steven Koopman and freshman cornerback Blake Perry slammed into Rose on a blitz. Rose's pass fell short and the Tigers took over on downs.

Freshman quarterback David Splithoff then directed Princeton on a 65-yard, 13-play scoring drive that took 6:43 off the clock.

Splithoff, who completed 13-of-23 passes for 155 yards and rushed for 50 yards and all three Tiger scores, was the playmaker on the drive.

Though a long pass to freshman wide receiver Blair Morrison on the first play of the drive was called back because a holding penalty, Splithoff completed two passes on the drive--one for a gain of 24 yards to the Harvard 28-yard line. Splithoff also scrambled three times, capping the drive with a four-yard quarterback draw play for a touchdown, tying the game at 21-21.

With 13:48 to go in the game, senior tailback Chuck Nwokocha who saw limited action in this game due to a knee injury in week one against Holy Cross, returned the Princeton kickoff to Harvard's 32-yard line.

The Crimson lined up in a two-tight end, two-receiver set, a formation that it had not used for more than a few plays before this game but was used extensively in this game, for the entire drive.

On first-and-10, sophomore running back Matt Leiszler gained four yards up the middle. Leiszler and fellow sophomore back Nick Palazzo combined for 139 rushing yards on 31 carries on the day, mostly on tough runs up the middle.

On second-and-7, sophomore wide receiver Sean Meeker got open on a slant route and Rose found him in stride. Meeker evaded tacklers after the catch and made it all the way to the Princeton 40-yard line.

Leiszler got the ball again on the next play and bulled his way up the middle for seven yards.

On second down with three yards to go, Rose dropped back to pass but his throw to Stakich fell incomplete.

On third-and-3 Leiszler took the ball up the middle but was stopped a foot short of the first-down marker. With a foot to go on fourth down at the Tigers' 30-yard line, Rose took the ball on a quarterback sneak, but the play was blown dead because of a false start penalty by the Crimson offensive line.

So, instead of fourth-and-inches, Harvard faced fourth and five at Princeton's 35-yard line. Rose dropped back to pass in the face of an intense Tigers blitz. That blitz, which buried Rose under three Princeton defenders, also left Stakich uncovered at the 25-yard line. Rose got the pass to his tight-end off just before the Tiger pass-rushers got to him. Stakich, with the help of some good downfield blocking from the wideouts, took the pass all the way for a touchdown.

This score gave Harvard the lead for good. The touchdown play was typical of the entire game. Princeton brought pressure on Rose on most passing plays, but Rose was able to stay alive in the pocket and find his receivers downfield.

"They've got some great receivers with Morris and Cremarosa and the rest," Princeton Coach Roger Hughes said. "We didn't feel like we could match-up with them downfield with our defensive backs. So we had to blitz Rose and, to his credit, he found a way to get the ball to his receivers."

The Crimson score, coming immediately on the heels of the Princeton touchdown and happening on fourth down, gave all the momentum to Harvard, which didn't relinquish it for the rest of the game.

On the next drive, Princeton downed a squib kick at its 34-yard line. After a false-start penalty on its first play, Splithoff found sophomore wide receiver Chisom Opara at the Princeton 42-yard line for a 13-yard gain.

Senior running back Tim Ligue gained three yards on the next play for a Tigers first down at the Princeton 45-yard line.

The Tigers gave the ball back to Ligue on a draw that went for seven yards on the next play. On second-and-3, Princeton was called for a false start. So, on second-and-8, sophomore running back Cameron Atkinson took the ball up the middle of the Harvard defense but was stopped after a gain of three by senior defensive tackle R.D. Kern.

On third down with five yards to go Splithoff dropped back to pass but junior defensive end Marc Laborsky beat senior offensive tackle John Raveche and sacked Splithoff, who was also called for intentional grounding on the play.

On fourth down with 21 yards to go, on its own 34-yard line, Princeton punted to sophomore wide receiver Carl Morris who returned the punt to the Harvard 31-yard line.

Harvard, again lined up in a two- tight end, two-receiver set, gave the Tigers a heavy dose of the run on this drive.

On first down, Leiszler took the ball on a toss sweep to the left that gained eight yards. With two yards to go on second down, Leiszler pounded up the middle for two yards and the first down.

On first-and-10 from the Harvard 41-yard line, Leiszler ran the same toss sweep play that he had run two plays before--again for a gain of eight yards.

Palazzo subbed in for Leiszler on the next play and took Rose's handoff up the middle for 17 yards to the Tigers 34-yard line.

Harvard could not get a play called on the next down and was called for a delay-of-game penalty that pushed it back to the Princeton 39.

On first-and-15, Leiszler gained four yards up the middle.

With 11 yards to go on second down, the Crimson spread the field and lined up in the shotgun with four wideouts. Senior center John Kadzielski snapped the ball prematurely, but Rose was able to fall on the ball to prevent a turnover.

On third-and-11, Rose dropped to pass and found Morris in stride downfield. Morris took the ball to the Princeton 31-yard line.

Harvard got back into its double-tight end, double-wideout set and gave the ball back to Leiszler, who gained three yards up the middle.

On second-and-7, Rose found senior tight end Brendan Kramer at the Princeton 8-yard line.

On first-and-goal from the eight, Leiszler took the ball on a trap play--in which the left guard pulled and blocked the left defensive tackle--up the middle. Though he was met at the goal line by both Princeton safeties, he ran over both of them for the final score of the game with 3:18 remaining.

Princeton took the ball on its next possession and worked it down to the Harvard 13-yard line, mostly on the strength of five Splithoff completions. But, because of penalties and a timely sack by junior defensive end Phil Scherrer on fourth-and-11 from the Harvard 14-yard line, the Crimson recovered the ball on downs and Rose kneeled twice to run out the remainder of the clock.

In contrast to the Cornell game two weeks ago when Harvard could not protect a lead in part because it did not run the ball enough to take time off the clock, in this game the Crimson was able to pound the ball on the ground.

"Our offensive line really took the game into their hands," Leiszler said. "They opened such huge holes at the end that it made my job very easy."

Another reason that the Crimson enjoyed success in this game was that, for the first time this season, Harvard did not cough up any turnovers.

Rose, who doesn't have the strongest arm on the squad, is a very accurate passer, and it showed against Princeton as he completed 25-of-36 passes, a 69-percent completion percentage.

The 35 points scored by Rose and the high-powered Crimson offense were the most points scored by a Harvard team ever against Princeton.

In the first half, Harvard sophomore kicker Anders Blewitt missed a field goal from 36-yards out.

Princeton took over on downs and went 80 yards in nine plays for the game's first score with 6:01 to go in the first quarter. Splithoff tallied the touchdown on a five-yard quarterback draw play.

On the kickoff, Nwokocha returned the ball 62 yards to the Princeton 39-yard line. Seven plays later, Leiszler followed senior fullback Grady Smalling up the middle for a two-yard touchdown run to tie the score at 7-7 with 3:13 to go in the first.

After that score, the game turned into a defensive battle until late in the second quarter. With 5:23 to go in the half, Leiszler took the ball in for a score off the left side of the Crimson line behind Captain left tackle Mike Clare for a touchdown, putting Harvard up 14-7.

Princeton struck right back on the next drive. Atkinson returned the Harvard kickoff 58 yards to the Crimson 37. Six plays later, Splithoff dropped back to pass, evaded Laborsky, who had him lined up for a sack, and scrambled 20 yards for a touchdown to tie the score at 14-14.

On the last play of the half, Harvard had the ball at the Princeton 14-yard line but Blewitt's 31-yard attempt missed wide left. For the season, Harvard kickers are one-for-nine on field goal attempts.

In the third quarter, Princeton fumbled the ball at Harvard's 47-yard line and junior linebacker Mike Cataldo recovered the ball for Harvard.

Four plays later, from the Princeton 27-yard line, Rose found Morris open on a 20-yard square-in. Morris then evaded his defender and took the ball in for a touchdown to give Harvard a 21-14 lead with 9:12 to go in the third.

Next week, the Crimson travels to Dartmouth to take on the Big Green in another must-win Ivy match-up.