Skip to main content

#Rivalry153 Lehigh Senior Spotlight

Like I did last year, I compiled a list of a "greatest hits" of some of the published articles on all of the Lehigh football seniors. 

They are below the flip.

All of the players below are listed as seniors or 5th year players on the current Lehigh roster.  Some may choose to return for 5th year medical redshirts.

The articles that are clipped are from a variety of sources: The Brown and White, The Morning Call, and LehighSports.com.



No. 1, Senior WR Sasha Kelsey


No. 2, Senior DB Quentin Jones


LehighSports.Com: Jones' Journey Back

Last October, Quentin Jones suffered a serious head injury in the second half of Lehigh's 63-35 win at Yale. At that moment, and the ensuing months, the last thing he could think about was football.

It took a lot of hard work, persistence and patience, but Jones is back and better than ever.

"At the time, I couldn't really think or process how hard the situation was," said Jones. "I would just sleep 12 to 15 hours a day for all of October, November and the first half of December. It wasn't until around Christmas time that I could start working out again.

"That time off to relax and do completely nothing was what I needed."

No. 3, Senior WR Troy Pelletier



The Brown and White: The G.O.A.T: Troy Pelletier finishes out record-breaking career

As The Rivalry game approaches, Pelletier said he’s never been more excited for a game before — and that’s coming from the athlete who started off his Le-Laf career at Yankee Stadium.

“Nothing compares to being at home for my last Le-Laf game with the Patriot League championship on the line,” Pelletier said.



No. 8, Senior WR Gatlin Casey


No. 15, Senior QB Matt Timochenko



No. 16, Senior QB Brendon Craven


No. 22, Senior RB Nana Amankwah-Ayeh




Morning Call: Lehigh's Amankwah-Ayeh is making a name for himself in the backfield

It might be a difficult name for broadcasters to pronounce or writers to spell, but when Amankwah-Ayeh says his name, it comes out effortlessly.

"I get kidded about that name all the time," he said. "But it's not too bad. I take it lightly."

Tackling his name is proving to be nearly as difficult than tackling Amankwah-Ayeh.

"He has been a real pleasant surprise," Mountain Hawks coach Andy Coen said. "He joined us last fall as a walk-on type of guy. He really wasn't in the mix, but during spring ball we were so decimated by injuries and didn't have a plethora of tailbacks, so he got to play a lot in the spring and was impressive.

"But the spring is the spring and the competition is different. Once we got into the [2015] season, we decided to put him in at the end of the Princeton game and he was lowering his shoulder. He carried the ball twice and got 18 yards, and he was just carrying guys."

No. 25, Senior RB Marc Raye-Redmond


No. 45, Senior TE Drew Paulsen



No. 46, Senior TE Mike Baur


No. 50, 5th yr senior DL Jim Mitchell




LehighSports.Com: Little Things Provide A Big Payoff

Every aspect of a team is integral to the collective success, from starting players to the scout team, video operators and more. Everyone doesn't always get the glamour, but each person has a valuable role.

Jimmy Mitchell certainly understands that concept.

"I've never been a big stat guy. I just focus on consistently doing my job," he said. "Consistently doing the right things is how I got the respect of my teammates, and it's landed me in the position I am today."

Today, Mitchell is in his fifth year with the Mountain Hawks. He's a reigning Academic All-Patriot League honoree and a current team co-captain.

In many ways, Mitchell's career has mirrored the resurgence of the Lehigh football program. The reason he's back for his fifth year is because as a freshman, he sustained a season-ending injury before his season even started.

"In high school, I had surgery on my shoulder and two weeks into (Lehigh) camp, it popped out again," he said. "It was going to keep happening unless I had surgery."


No. 65, Senior OL Tim O'Hara




LehighSports.Com: Understanding The Big Picture

Senior offensive lineman Tim O'Hara got some advice from his father that will always stick with him.

"My dad would say there's a difference between working and having a job. When you work, you're physically doing something, but when you have a job, you really enjoy what you're doing and you're enthusiastic about it."

Enthusiasm is a word that describes Tim O'Hara - the athlete, student and overall person. O'Hara finds a way to enjoy everything he does, even when it may be difficult.

"I don't think there's a single offensive lineman who enjoys individual periods in practice, but it's a necessary part of what we do and it's a time to get better," he said. "Putting that energy and effort in will make you better in what you truly enjoy - pass blocking, run blocking and moving around hitting people.

He continued, "You have to allow the aspects that you enjoy to come through brighter than the aspects you don't enjoy."

No. 72, 5th yr senior OL Zach Duffy




Brown and White: Mountain Hawk Tribune: Zach Duffy

Being a fifth-year captain, I’ve tried to take a step back and appreciate the opportunities this institution — and the football program specifically — has given me.

This weekend, we’re playing for more than a win against Lafayette or a league title. We’re playing for those seniors who left the field in tears my freshman year. We’re playing for the seniors who last played at Yankee Stadium when we were embarrassed in front of 50,000 people. We’re playing for every other Lehigh football player who’s ever worn the brown and white.

Coach Coen frequently tells us tradition never graduates. It takes some time to realize, but Lehigh’s tradition of excellence is much bigger than just what we do today. It’s about everyone before us and everyone that comes after us.

I’m fortunate to say I play the greatest team game in the world, and I’m proud to say I’ve gotten to partake in the most-played college football rivalry ever.

While this weekend will be bittersweet regardless of the outcome, the silver lining is that I’m going to be a part of this tradition for the rest of my life. That’s what makes The Rivalry so special.

Le-Laf week is one of the few times when we all come together as a student body. Regardless of what groups you are involved in, whether it be sports teams, Greek organizations or other clubs, come out this weekend to support the brown and white. This isn’t just a rivalry. It’s THE RIVALRY. #GoHawks

No. 74, 5th yr senior OL Brandon Short




Morning Call: Lehigh fifth-year seniors happy they stayed around for another title run

“I told my wife the other day that if we can finish this out and win a championship, this may be my best team,” Lehigh coach Andy Coen said. “We have these fifth-year kids who are really good kids. I joke with Duffy and Short that I am going to adopt them.

“You look back at all the injuries we had, and it would have been easy for it to come apart, but we showed we’re a good team because the kids hung together.”

“We all took a look in the mirror and started playing football again,” Short said. “Early on, we were all trying to do too much. Everybody was trying to do more than what their job was. We decided to just do our job to the best of our ability and started having fun playing a game we’ve been playing for a long time.”

“Dom will say it’s because we’re opening the holes that he’s so successful, but it’s easy to get on people, give him a small hole and know that he can go on a long run,” Short said.



No. 90, Senior DE Tyler Cavenas


Brown and White: Three mini Lehigh football profiles

“We always talk about how it’s a new season,” Cavenas said. “Even when you start the season, there’s a little part of you in the back of your mind that’s thinking ‘Rivalry game.’ It’s more than just the people on the field, too. This Rivalry game is huge, and everyone on campus is talking about it. You don’t realize how big it is and what it means to a lot of people, and I’m the one who’s actually going to be the one playing in it.”

No. 94, Senior DT Justin Gille



No. 98, Senior DL Harrison Johnson

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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....

UMass 21, Lafayette 14, halftime

Are you watching this game? UMass had this game under control until about 3 minutes in the second quarter, and then got an interception, converted for a TD. Then the Leopards forced a fumble off the return, and then converted THAT for a TD, making this a game. It's on CN8. You really should be watching this.

Examining A Figure Skating Rivalry: Tonya and Nancy

It must be very hard for a millennial to understand the fuss around the Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding figure skating scandal in the run-up to the 1994 Olympics. If you're of a certain age, though - whether you're a figure skating fan or not, and I am decidedly no fan of figure skating - the Shakespearean story of Harding and Kerrigan still engages, and still grabs peoples' attention, twenty years later. Why, though?  Why, twenty years later, in a sport I care little, does the story still grab me?  Why did I spend time out of my life watching dueling NBC and ESPN documentaries on the subject, and Google multiple stories about Jeff Gilooly , idiot "bodyguards", and the whole sordid affair? I think it's because the story, even twenty years later, is like opium. The addictive story, even now, has everything.  Everything.  The woman that fought for everything, perhaps crossing over to the dark side to get her chance at Olypic Gold, vs. the woman who...