Matchup Against Tigers Looms

By RICKY LIU

CONTRIBUTING WRITER

With its season already halfway over, the Harvard football team will look to kick things into high gear when it delves into the meat of its conference season beginning this weekend.

Having wrapped up its final non-conference game last weekend against Lehigh, the Crimson (3-2, 1-1 Ivy) will head down to Powers Field on Saturday at 1 p.m. to take on Princeton (1-4, 0-2), as the race for the Ivy League crown begins to pick up in intensity.

When league-only play starts this weekend, every Ancient Eight squad, including the two aforementioned teams, has the opportunity to gain some ground in the conference standings and make a run for this year’s Ivy League title.

“Our kids are excited, always excited to play Princeton,” Harvard coach Tim Murphy said. “Every game when you only have 10 is a big game on your schedule…but the Princeton game is one of the big ones marked on the schedule. Everybody wants to be Harvard’s rival. Princeton is our rival.”

The Crimson hopes that the outcome of this game remains true to recent history. Harvard has taken 11 of the last 13 meetings between these two teams, including the last three.

Meanwhile, the Tigers are looking to end their three-game losing streak with their first Ivy League win of the season.

After coming off of disappointing Week-5 losses, both teams are looking for a momentum swing going into the rest of the conference schedule with a victory this weekend. Each team saw substantial halftime leads disappear due to lack of offensive production in the second halves of their respective games.

Going into halftime last weekend, Princeton led Brown by 13 points but fell to the Bears in the end by a score of 17-13.

Similarly, the Crimson held a 17-0 halftime lead over visiting Lehigh but was unable to produce on offense or hold back the Mountain Hawks on defense, resulting in a 21-19 loss for Harvard.

The Tigers surrendered 338 yards of total offense to Brown last weekend, including 153 yards on the ground.

This matchup could prove to be a big opportunity for the Crimson running back trio of senior Gino Gordon and sophomores Treavor Scales and Rich Zajeski. The three head the Ivy League’s second-leading rushing offense.

In the past three games, Harvard has rushed for an average of 280 yards, gaining an average of over six yards per carry.

The three tailbacks are looking forward to taking advantage of Princeton’s rushing defense, which has given up an average of 207 yards on the ground per game this season and is ranked second-to-last in the Ivy League.

“We didn’t make enough plays in the second half last week,” Scales said. “We ran pretty well in the first half, but we didn’t come out to compete after halftime. We’re going to play for the entire game this week and not stop until the clock runs out.”

An intriguing matchup to look out for in this contest is between the offense for the Tigers and the Crimson defense. Both units have suffered a multitude of injuries in the past several weeks.

Most recently, Princeton starting quarterback Tommy Wornham injured his shoulder last week against the Bears last week.

The Harvard defensive line will look to take advantage of the oppositon’s signal-caller situation and inexperienced offensive line, which returns only two starters from last year.

“We really think that it’s going to be critical for our front four to get pressure on their quarterback, something we didn’t do a week ago,” Murphy said, “and I think those guys are very motivated to get that done.”

On the flip side, the Crimson will have to contend with the Tigers’ receiving corps, led by seniors Andrew Kerr and Trey Peacock, the Ivy League’s leader in receptions and receiving yards per game.

“They’ve got…arguably the best group of wide receivers in the league right now, starting with Trey Peacock,” Murphy said. “[But] I think we’re going to match up fine. We were really encouraged last week at times, especially with how [senior defensive back] Nico Amaro stepped up.”

With virtually every team in the Ancient Eight sustaining significant injuries, a win this weekend could propel almost any team in the conference to the top of the pack.

But Harvard is only concerning itself with its next opponent.

“There is no position other than beat Princeton,” Murphy said. “That’s all there is. It’s just one game at a time, one play at a time, because the only destiny that we control is finding a way to beat Princeton. Nothing else exists for us in our world.”