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Showing posts from November 1, 2009

Lehigh 20, Holy Cross 24, Final

I was there to see what was almost the biggest Lehigh upset in two decades. The No. 13 team in the country. The Mountain Hawks written off by pretty much everyone, including me. And Lehigh didn't just put forth a great effort, they very nearly shocked the world, pressuring Holy Cross senior QB Dominic Randolph intensely and making the superhuman Crusader QB look a lot more like a regular human being. You got the feeling this one would be different from the opening drive. Lehigh got the ball first and junior QB J.B. Clark led the offense right down the field, punctuated by big runs by junior RB Jay Campbell and a 14 yard TD pass to junior TE Alex Wojdowski . When the Lehigh defense would stop Holy Cross' initial drive at the 7 yard line, forcing the Crusaders to settle for a short FG, you got the feeling that this was going to be a game. It would never be beyond one score all afternoon, with two ties and four lead changes. Against a team that had scored over 30 points

Game Preview: Holy Cross at Lehigh

It's three weeks until the end of the regular season. At 2-6, the Mountain Hawks don't really deserve to have any hope - however infinitesimal - for competing for the Patriot League title. If your record says what you are, Lehigh is an under-.500 team. The record says that Mountain Hawks are a team that beat Georgetown and Bucknell and nobody else. They are a team that didn't score a single point in their last appearance at home three weeks ago. They are a team that played better last week, but still lost a tough game to Colgate 27-20. 2-6. The record tells you what you are, and it's not pretty. This isn't the world of Shallow Hal , where we can be hypnotized like Jack Black into thinking that 2-6 is actually 6-2. And yet, the tiniest hope still exists that Colgate loses this weekend - eighteen miles away from Murray Goodman Stadium - and Lehigh pulls off what would be considered the biggest Mountain Hawk upset of this decade. As improbable as that might be

Players of the Week, Lehigh vs. Colgate

Last week's valiant effort versus the Raiders results in these players getting nominations for LFN's "Players of the Week": Offensive Hawk: Junior QB J.B. Clark (54 yards rushing, 151 yards passing, 2 TDs, 0 INTs, 0 turnovers) Defensive Hawk: Senior LB Troy Taylor (8 tackles, 3 tackles for loss) Special Teams Hawk: Freshman PK Jake Peery , who went 2-2 on field goals (25, 35 yards) and extra points - no mean feat in 20-30 mph winds. Something to think about, with Holy Cross coming to town: the 1969 Lehigh football season. Forty years ago, the Engineers started at 2-5-1 (including losses to The Citadel, Delaware, Wittenburg and Gattysburg). But Lehigh would win their last two games versus Bucknell and Lafayette to become "Middle Three" Champions and would get votes for the Lambert Cup. (Matter of fact, Lehigh's 36-19 victory would come two days before I was born.) That season, R B Jack Rizzo would debut, and soon thereafter Lehigh was playing in th

FCS East Wrapup: Minute Hens Fall, Clarify CAA Playoff Bids

(Photo courtesy Fred Comegys/The Delaware News Journal) Going into last weekend, the specter of five CAA teams in the playoffs loomed large. But with James Madison's 20-8 upset of Delaware and Maine's 19-9 upset of UMass made it that much more likely that the CAA only puts three at-large teams into the playoffs. If there was any thought that Mickey Matthews' James Madison team was going to roll over the rest of the year, that was dispelled this past weekend on the road against the Blue Hens. Trailing 3-0 at halftime, the Dukes' long-dormant offense finally came alive, with freshman QB Justin Thorpe breaking a ten quarter touchdown-less streak with a 12 yard run. Add to that a smothering defensive performance - forcing Hen junior QB Pat Devlin into a 19-for-42, 2 interception day, and only allowing the Hens a paltry 9 yards rushing. Since beating New Hampshire and remaining in the hunt for a playoff spot, UMass has self-destructed. There's no other way to d

Press Roundup: Colgate 27, Lehigh 20

(Photo courtesy Colgate Athletics) There was precious little coverage in the papers this weekend on the game, especially in the upstate New York area where all we have is the AP mentions that a game was played in Hamilton and that the 7-1 Raiders still are very much in the hunt for a spot in the playoffs and maybe the Patriot League autobid. The local papers also mostly ran modified versions of the official Lehigh recap, though to their credit the Morning Call did do a follow-up piece today as well. Even the student-run Brown and White didn't mention the game at Colgate this weekend, which leaves my recap as the only independent record of the game this Saturday . Lehigh Athletics: Lehigh Can't Hold Early Lead, Falls to Colgate 27-20 "I thought the kids fought hard, they competed right to the end there. But we need to win one of these close games,” Mountain Hawks head coach Andy Coen said after the game. “I thought junior QB J.B. Clark did a nice job running the offens

Sunday's Word: Stars

Seeing as my "Word" last week - "Lidge" - did way worse than Lehigh did this weekend against Colgate, it's probably time to go to another topic that is probably worth discussing. (Um, guys? Don't think about "Lidge" any more. Please.) I try to watch as many Patriot League games as I can during the year (as long as it fits into my, um, Lehigh viewing/attending schedule). I knew Colgate had some really good athletes, but the couple times I saw them during the year were not their best days. On ESPNU a few weeks ago, Colgate escaped Princeton in a game that probably won't make anyone's highlight reel, and the Fordham game wasn't one for the ages, either. The artists formerly known as the Red Raiders did, however, win those games. And they beat Lehigh with some players that are bona-fide "stars". In my Sunday "Words" this year, it probably seems like I've been down on the Patriot League in general. Is it becaus