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Press; Game balls: Rankings

Postgame press from Lehigh/Georgetown
Allentown Morning Call:
Lehigh Wins, Takes Over Patriot Lead
Lehigh Suffers Letdown but Wins Anyway
Easton Express-Times:
Walker keeps Lehigh right on course
Hoyasaxa.Com:
Lehigh 49, Georgetown 18

Quotes:
"The pale complexion of Pete Lembo's face late Saturday afternoon matched the color of the sidewalk outside Lehigh's locker room at Georgetown... Lembo's queasiness had nothing to do with some uneasy moments his Mountain Hawks encountered against the host Hoyas.

"Lehigh... lacked the intensity and crispness it has had in recent weeks and used a few big plays by the offense, defense and special teams to overcome its inconsistency.

"Special teams miscues kept the Hoyas out of contention time and time again against the #9-ranked Engineers (aka Mountain Hawks), in a game where the Georgetown offense showed some of its best efforts all season. Time and time again, when momentum seemed to be turning Georgetown's way, the special teams turned it right back.

"Statistically, the Hoyas held their own with Lehigh, but suffered mightily in doing the little things that are needed to win.

[Not that Lehigh did either...]

''I'll have to go back and watch the film, but I believe we had as many dropped balls today as we had against Lafayette two years ago when we had 11,'' Lembo said. ''I bet we came pretty darn close to that many today. That's one thing that upset me and I didn't like the overall intensity of the defense in the first half. And we gave up some big plays on special teams.''

"Georgetown's last score came on a 90-yard kickoff return in the third quarter.... Lembo: ''The kick was too far to the middle of the field, which puts a lot of extra stress on our coverage and we didn't do a good enough job of adjusting to it,'' Lembo said.

''We've got to pick things up, obviously,'' Lembo said. ''It just felt like everybody was taking their turn to make a mistake. There were a lot of good things going on, but it seemed like everyone from the long snapper on down the roster had a potentially costly mistake.''

''I couldn't tell you the reason why, we're just very disappointed that it occured,'' tight end Adam Bergen said. ''A lot of people may have been laying back after what happened last week and maybe some were looking ahead. I don't know.''

''We came out pretty flat today,'' Bergen said. ''We know we can't afford to do that in the next two weeks because those teams can beat us. Sometimes its human nature to have a letdown, but we have to get through it. This game was just as important as last week's game.''

"It's always good to come away with the win," [Gerran] Walker said. "But some of the mistakes we made should never happen. If Georgetown's supposed to be the worst team in our league, we're in for trouble."

''If you look at our week of practice, some of the guys — not everybody — were laid back because we were playing Georgetown,'' Walker said. ''Some of them went through the motions. Hopefully, you'll never see that again.''

[Nice job of Walker there handling that.]

The good news is that the bad stuff came in a 31-point win. The Mountain Hawks simply must make sure the sloppiness was an aberration and not the start of a trend... ''I sensed a letdown and what's most frustrating to me is that I'm confident that our staff did everything they could to prepare the kids and guard against it,'' Lembo said... ''Our guys need to understand that when you're in first place and you're in the position we're in, everybody is going take their best shot at you. We're not that good that are going to watch tape and simply be intimidated.''The way we're going to win games, whether it's against Georgetown, Fordham or Lafayette, is to play harder and execute. We did that at times, but not with enough consistency. The bottom line is that we got a lopsided win, but there was enough there that we'll certainly be able to keep the players humble this week.''

I'd like to add something to the end of this. It was good to see the senior Adam Bergen and junior Gerran Walker really step up to the plate in the postgame press conference and not let individual performances get in the way of disappointing team play. The leadership both showed there will serve Adam well in the NFL, and will server Gerran well next year.

Game Balls
This week's game balls go to:
Offense:
Junior QB Mark Borda (15-30, 288 yards, 4 TDs, 0 INTs)
Sophomore RB Marques Thompson (99 yards rushing)
Senior TE Adam Bergen (7 receptions, 79 yards, 2 TDs)
Defense:
Junior DT Josh Cooney (4 tackles, 1 sack, 1 fumble recovery)
Senior SS Karrie Ford (40 yard fumble recovery for TD)
Senior OLD Matt Purdy (7 tackles, 1 TFL)
Special Teams:
Junior WR Gerran Walker (89 yard return for TD, plus 61 yards receiving, TD)

Congratulations to all! Walker can take that game ball to go with his award for Patriot League Special Teams Player of the Week!

Polls
Lehigh has jumped up in ranking to #8!
Sports Network (#8)
ESPN/USA Today (#9)
Dopke.Com (#12)

Are you ready for the last home game of the year against Fordham? If Lehigh wins the game, they will clinch at least a share of the Patriot League title.

Coming up: Lehigh/Fordham Preview; more November surprises?

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