Turnovers Turn it Around

Harvard’s defense watched as an opposing rusher racked up over 100 yards—for the first time in three years. It watched as a comfortable halftime lead dwindled as the minutes wound down in the fourth quarter.

But it was Lehigh who watched as the Crimson’s defense got the big play it needed to seal its third straight win. As the Mountain Hawks charged inside the Harvard 20 and seemed on the cusp of taking the lead with just over a minute to play, senior defensive end Peter Ajayi forced Lehigh quarterback J.B. Clark to fumble, and the loose ball popped into the arms of classmate Glenn Dorris to preserve a 27-24 Crimson victory Saturday afternoon at Harvard Stadium.

“The first thing I said to our team when we got back in the locker room was, ‘Don’t think you backed into this one,’ because we talk all the time about how we’re going to be in a situation like this at some point, and we’re going to have to come up with a play,” Harvard coach Tim Murphy said. “You have to find a way to finish, and we did.”

Lehigh had put together perhaps its most impressive drive of the day before Clark’s fumble, using three straight completions to receiver Sekou Yansane and mixing in rushes from Matt McGowan to move the chains as the clock wound down under two minutes. Yansane, who gave the Harvard secondary fits all afternoon, seemed to have the play that would complete the Mountain Hawks’ improbable comeback when he leapt in the back corner of the end zone for Clark’s perfectly lofted pass. But senior cornerback Andrew Berry, who had spent most of the game guarding the slot receiver, stayed with Yansane to break up the touchdown that would have likely sealed a last-minute win for Lehigh.

“I thought I had it,” said Yansane, who seemed to have briefly lost his bearings after the play. “When I woke up, I asked the trainer, ‘Was it a touchdown?’ I thought it was.”

“Andrew has a knack for doing that,” Murphy added. “Some guys would say, ‘Boy, we got lucky,’ but when it’s Andrew, we see it week after week, year after year.”

Yansane, who Murphy called “the best receiver we’ve played against,” made his presence felt from start to finish, and one of his 11 catches (132 yards) pulled the Mountain Hawks within seven when he shook Crimson junior corner Derrick Barker for a wide-open touchdown with 8:51 to play in the third.

But while all eyes were on Yansane, McGowan had the one number that stood out to the Crimson and its fans: 105. Not since Brown’s Nick Hartigan took two overtime periods to rush for 115 yards on Sept. 24, 2005 has a Harvard opponent racked up over 100 yards on the ground.

“That means that they did a good job, and we’ve got to give them credit on that,” Murphy said. “I thought our guys did a good job, but we’ve got a lot to work on.”

If the defense had the game-changing plays, the offense continued its consistent production: Harvard has scored at least 22 points in all five games in 2008. Senior quarterback Chris Pizzotti had another solid Saturday, going 25-for-40 with two touchdowns and one interception, and the Crimson never trailed in what looked like a shootout—and what could have been a laugher—from the outset.

After freshman cornerback Matt Hanson recovered a Lehigh fumble in its own territory, Pizzotti connected with junior wideout Matt Luft (seven catches, 111 yards) on a perfect throw to the corner of the end zone to open the scoring. It was the first of two touchdown receptions on the day for Luft, who has been Pizzotti’s favorite target with three games of 100+ receiving yards.

“The chemistry’s been really good,” said Luft, who Pizzotti said “sees the field like a quarterback.” “We’re throwing all the time in practice, talking to each other about what we’re going to do on different drives, what he wants to see or what he’s looking at.”

While Pizzotti-to-Luft has been Harvard’s bread-and-butter on offense this season, injuries to regular running backs Cheng Ho and Gino Gordon thrust junior Ben Jenkins into the spotlight Saturday. The junior chipped in 95 yards of total offense out of the backfield and kept the chains moving on the Crimson’s first-half scoring drives.

But even when Harvard seemed poised to put the game out of reach, Clark and his offense proved game for a high-scoring affair. After four of its first five drives came up empty—including the fifth, which ended with a Dorris interception return for a touchdown to push the Crimson’s lead to 14—Clark engineered an impressive 80-yard drive and capped it with a bullet to a wide-open Mike Fitzgerald to make it 17-10.

And as Harvard’s offense sputtered after the break, mustering just a third-quarter field goal, momentum shifted in Lehigh’s favor. Pizzotti led his team deep into enemy territory with under nine minutes to play, but saw his bid for a back-breaking touchdown get intercepted by Casey Eldemire and returned to the Crimson 35.

“I probably got a little too greedy with that call,” Murphy said. “I went for everything instead of being conservative and saying ‘Let’s get a field goal.’ I probably shouldn’t have done that.”

An unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on the Harvard bench placed the ball at midfield for Clark, who needed just over two minutes to reach the end zone. After Fitzgerald’s second touchdown grab brought the Mountain Hawks within three with 6:27 to play, their defense fired up the Lehigh sideline with back-to-back sacks to force a Harvard punt. That set up the final drive and the heroics from the Crimson defense, which did just enough to earn a win.

“They were both Christmas gifts,” Dorris said of his first-half interception and the fumble recovery. “[The recovery] wasn’t that hard of a play for me.”

If the game’s final stand was a gift, Harvard will take it. But Ajayi thought otherwise.

“We maintain the utmost confidence in ourselves,” he said. “Even as they were driving, we were confident that as long as we stayed within our system and continued to play as we’re coached, at any point we could make the big play and turn it around.”

—Staff writer Emily W. Cunningham can be reached at ecunning@fas.harvard.edu.