Weekend Wrapup: Lehigh Sweeps Opponents In Wrestling and Basketball

I'm trying to remember the last time that Lehigh won five different sporting events on the same weekend. I can't think of any time it's ever happened... and if it has, it's doubtful if it involved not one, but two sweeps of "that school in Easton".

I'm also trying to remember the last time the Lehigh men's and women's basketball teams all competed in front of crowds more than 1,000 strong. With 1,748 packing into Stabler to see the Lady Hawks, over 3,000 in Easton to see the Lehigh men beat "that school in Easton", and an average of over 1,700 fans in Leeman-Turner Arena at Grace Hall for three wrestling duals on campus - that's got to be some sort of record.

Start with the wrestling trifecta this weekend - and while it's not totally unexpected that the Lehigh grapplers beat Drexel, Harvard and Brown on Friday and Saturday, the way they did it - with only six defeats in twenty-seven matches - has to leave smiles with Lehigh wrestling fans. Specifically, it was a perfect 9-0 record in 133, 141 and 149: Junior 133 lb Matt Fisk, with one major decision; junior 141 lb Seth Ciasulli, with two falls; and senior 149 lb Trevor Chinn, with one technical fall and one regular fall. With the amount of bonus points this trio racked up, look for No. 16 Fisk and No. 14 Chinn to climb up the national rankings - and possibly see Ciasulli as well break into the rankings too, by the time Lehigh faces Bucknell at home in a couple weeks.

The party didn't stop there, as the men's basketball team held off pesky Lafayette 60-57 at Kirby Sports Center in Easton. While junior G Marquis Hall was the lead story, scoring his 1,000th point en route to an 18 point, 5 rebound, 3 steal day, it would really be free throws that would determine the winner here - and junior F Zahir Carrington's draining of two free throws with four seconds left to seal the victory. Carrington, senior F Phil Anderson and junior G Dave Buchburger had a great day on the boards, totalling 24 boards between the three of them.

Still, head coach Brett Reed, with the loss on Wednesday to Colgate still undoubtedly fresh on his mind, wasn't exactly pleased: “We didn’t necessarily play smart for the entire game, and down the stretch we were fortunate rather than good, but nonetheless we were able to make some free throws and play very tough defense to secure the victory. I guess we like to make it entertaining.”

The 12-7 Mountain Hawks (Real Time RPI: 225) won't have too much time to celebrate with 5-14 Bucknell (Real Time RPI: 264) coming to town. While the Bison have struggled with a brutal out-of-conference schedule, they have won their last two against Colgate and Lafayette and always seem to beat Lehigh year in and year out. Sophmore G G.W. Boon has emerged in the past few games as a bona-fide starter in league play, averaging 11.3 ppg in Bucknell's extraordinarily balanced offense. Crucial to Lehigh's chances will be defending the arc: as a team, the Bison are shooting 34% from 3-point range, and will certainly have to hold them below their average if they hope to come away with the "W". They will be playing at 7:00 P.M. at Stabler this Wednesday.

Completing the historic weekend was a 73-51 drubbing of the Lady Leopards at Stabler on Saturday by the Lady Hawks, paced by - who else - sophomore G Erica Prosser, with 24 points, 5 assists, and 4 steals - and seven of the first eleven points in the second half to make a four point halftime lead into an insurmountable 15 point mountain. (Unsurprisingly, she won her fourth Patriot League Player of the Week honors for her performance.) Head coach Sue Troyan also went to her bench to get production: senior F Haly Crites and freshman F Emily Gratch both led the team with 4 rebounds apiece, and junior G Kristen Dalton came off the bench and added 10 points.

Another Patriot League test awaits on Wednesday for the 14-5 Lady Hawks (Real Time RPI: 116) as they travel to Lewisburg to face the 10-8 Bison (Real Time RPI: 225). Bucknell reversed a three game skid on Saturday by pulverizing hapless Colgate 86-54 - their biggest scoring total on the year. Like Lehigh, the Lady Bison have their own superstar to deal with: senior G Amanda Brown, averaging 15.3 ppg with a 3-point percentage of 38%. Not far behind is senior F Lauren Schoeber, with 9.7 ppg and 35% from the 3-point arc.

Prosser vs. Brown on Wednesday? Should be fascinating - and may be a tough battle for the Lady Hawks.

How The Ivy League Is Able To Break the NCAA's Scholarship Limits and Still Consider Themselves FCS

By now you've seen the results. In 2018, the Ivy League has taken the FCS by storm. Perhaps it was Penn's 30-10 defeat of Lehigh a couple of weeks ago . Or maybe it was Princeton's 50-9 drubbing of another team that made the FCS Playoffs last year, Monmouth. Or maybe it was Yale's shockingly dominant 35-14 win over nationally-ranked Maine last weekend. The Ivy League has gone an astounding 12-4 so far in out-of-conference play, many of those wins coming against the Patriot League. But it's not just against the Patriot League where the Ivy League has excelled. Every Ivy League school has at least one out-of-conference victory, which is remarkable since it is only three games into their football season. The four losses - Rhode Island over Harvard, Holy Cross over Yale, Delaware over Cornell, and Cal Poly over Brown - were either close losses that could have gone either way or expected blowouts of teams picked to be at the bottom of the Ivy League. W

Made-Up Midseason Grades for Lehigh Football

We are now officially midway through the 2023 Lehigh football season. The Mountain Hawks sit at 1-5 overall, and 0-1 in the Patriot League. I thought I'd go ahead and make up some midseason grades, and set some "fan goals" for the second half. The 2023 Mountain Hawks were picked to finish fifth in the seven team Patriot League. In order to meet or exceed that expectation, they'll probably have to go at least 3-2 the rest of the way in conference play. Their remaining games are vs. Georgetown, at Bucknell, vs. Holy Cross, at Colgate, and vs. Lafayette in The Rivalry. Can they do it? Culture Changing: B+ . I was there in the Bronx last week after the tough 38-35 defeat to Fordham, and there wasn't a single player emerging from the locker room that looked like they didn't care. Every face was glum. They didn't even seem sad. More frustrated and angry. That may seem normal, considering the agonizing way the Mountain Hawks lost, but it was a marked chan

Mud

I was trying to figure out the worst Lehigh/Colgate game I have ever witnessed. My history goes way back with Lehigh, of course, and I really had to rack my brain. What loss to Colgate that I had witnessed was worse than this one? I wasn't at Andy Kerr Stadium when Lehigh lost 61-28 in 1997 to a Colgate team that would win the Patriot League title - as a matter of fact, I'm fairly certain I didn't even find out about the score of the game until that night on ESPN, since the game wasn't televised where I was living at the time. The win set a Colgate school record for points scored vs. Lehigh - one that still stands today. QB Phil Stambaugh and RB Rabih Abdullah, both Lehigh football legends today, fumbled the very first exchange, and the game snowballed from there after Colgate converted the gift into an early 7-0 lead. I wasn't at Andy Kerr Stadium when Lehigh lost 21-7 in 2007 , but I remember following the game on TV, when an injured QB Sedale Threatt was red

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