Penn, Harvard Maintain Collision Course

The Ancient Eight is starting to look more and more like the Big Two and the Little Six.

Both Harvard and No. 19 Pennsylvania remain undefeated (6-0, 4-0 Ivy) and in a first-place tie atop the Ivy League standings this week.

The Crimson staged the biggest comeback in school history to turn away a stingy Dartmouth (1-5, 1-3 Ivy) team, 31-21, while Penn’s defense reigned supreme in their road victory over Brown.

The weekend’s action leave two teams—Brown and Columbia—tied for third place at 2-2 in the league, and the remaining four teams sitting in fifth place at 1-3 in Ivy play.

Pennsylvania 27, Brown 14

As Brown learned the hard way last Saturday, it’s hard to win a football game when your rushing total is preceded by a negative sign.

And while Brown quarterback Kyle Rowley’s 313-yard passing performance kept things close, the Bears’ inabiliy to run the football against the top rushing defense in Division I-AA spelled their doom against Penn.

But strangely enough, it was the Bears’ ground game that began the day’s scoring. Senior running back Michael Malan reached paydirt with 10:17 to play in the first quarter. Sean Jensen’s point after gave the Bears (3-3, 2-2) a 7-0 lead.

However, the Quakers and quarterback Gavin Hoffman owned the second quarter.

Hoffman, the reigning Ivy League Player of the Year, threw for two touchdowns in that period, one each to Jonathan Robinson and Kris Ryan to send the Quakers into the locker room with a 14-7 halftime advantage.

The Bears knotted things up with 5:15 to play in the third quarter as Rowley found the always dangerous Chas Gessner on a 1-yard touchdown strike.

From that point on, Penn’s rushing game took control. Or perhaps more appropriately, Ryan took the ball and ran with it.

Ryan, who finished with 189 yards rushing on the day and shared Ivy Leauge Offensive Player of the Week honors with Harvard’s Carl Morris, scored on runs of 2 and 3 yards in the final quarter.

Columbia 28, Yale 14

Yale accomplished one mission last Saturday. Unfortuantely for the Bulldogs, though, it wasn’t quite enough.

The Elis did an excellent job of stopping Columbia’s game-breaking running back Johnathan Reese, holding him to just 51 yards on 21 carries.

Columbia (2-4, 2-2) was able to shift their offensive focus to the air, though, and Lion quarterback Jeff McCall threw two second-half touchdown passes to Doug Peck to key the win.

But as it turns out, it was a big defensive play that turned the tide for Columbia.

With the game tied 7-7 and the first half winding down, Columbia’s Philip Murray picked off a Peter Lee pass and scampered 85 yards for the score with only four seconds remaining on the clock.

Murray’s heroics earned him Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week honors.

The Elis (3-3, 1-3), however, regained their composure and made a run in the second half.

With the Lions on top 21-7 thanks to the first McCall-to-Peck strike, Yale’s Billy Brown scored on a 20-yard pass from Lee. The score drew the Bulldogs to within seven with 5:19 to go in the game.

But the Lions refused to let up. A little over a minute later, McCall found Peck once again, this time on a 85-yard bomb, to seal the game.

Cornell 10, Princeton 7

Another week, another missed opportunity for Princeton’s Taylor Northrup.

After missing what would have been a game-winning 49-yarder against Harvard two Saturdays ago, Northrup’s potentially game-tying 57-yard try hit the crossbar last Saturday against Cornell.

In a very tight game in which the Tigers held a slight advantage in total yards (308-302), Princeton struck first.

With 3:58 to play in the first half, quarterback Dave Splithoff found tight end Mike Chiusano for an 8-yard touchdown score to cap a 9-play drive that began on the Princeton 2-yard-line.

As it turned out, it was the last time the Tigers would change their side of the scoreboard all afternoon.

The Big Red were able to counter quickly.

Cornell quarterback Ricky Rahne led his team on a 10-play, 78-yard scoring drive capped by a 14-yard scoring toss to Keith Ferguson with 25 seconds to go in the first half.

The only scoring in the second half came by way of Peter Iverson’s leg.

The Cornell kicker gave his team a 10-7 advantage on a 40-yard kick with 13:25 to play in the game.

Both teams are now 1-5 and 1-3 in Ivy play.