Lehigh Football Nation

Lehigh cruised into the semifinals of the Virginia Duals this Friday, after first destroying Ohio 34-8 and then managing to secure a 21-15 victory over No. 24 Kent State. Junior 165 lb Matt Galante was the biggest star on Friday, securing two falls and getting bonus points against the two MAC schools. Against Ohio, junior 133 lb Matt Fisk and junior 184 lb David Craig also secured falls. Saturday will be a really busy day for Lehigh fans. At 2 p.m., take your pick: listen to the wrestling semifinals against Edinboro, or listen to the 10-4 men's Basketball team travelling to Washington, DC to take on American. At 7 p.m., the 11-3 women's basketball team host American at Stabler, and at 8:30 p.m. the wrestlers will either be wrestling to take the Virginia Duals or wrestling for third place. (All coverage can be found on Lehighsports.com. ) And, of course, there's that Eagles/Giants thing at 1 p.m. on Sunday.

Of all the days to be at an Ivy League basketball game, and I pick the wrong one. Yes, I really would have liked to have traveled up to Boston to see Harvard pull off a historic 82-70 pummeling of Boston College (yes, that isn't a typo). Instead, I packed up the family thinking of another team with a great shot at a road win - my Mountain Hawks, of course. I've been outside Jadwin Gym before, but I've never been in the modern, yet intimate, setting for college basketball. My wife, my five year old son and I got there late and had dinner at the "bistro" area - a cordoned area where you can eat your food and still catch the game action while you eat - a really nice touch. Unfortunately Lehigh fell behind right at the end of the first half and never got closer to four points the rest of the way in a 73-64 defeat , breaking a five game Lehigh win streak. The win for Princeton was as ugly as the Harvard win was beautiful. The Tigers won by hitting their shots (to ...

With the release this week of the big All-American lists, several Mountain Hawks have showed up with honorable mentions. Of course, the biggest honor remains for these 2008 Mountain Hawks - no, I'm not talking about the trophies at the annual awards dinner, but the coveted LFN Hawks of the Year unveiled on this site. Here's the list of the honorees. Congratulations to all the winners! FCSADA Academic All-Star Team : Senior DB Brendan VanAckeren (3.48 GPA) College Sporting News "Fabulous Fifty" Honorable Mention: Senior DB Quadir Carter The Sports Network All-American Team Honorable Mention: Senior DL Brian Jackson, Senior LB Tim Diamond, Senior P/K Jason Leo

There was an awful lot more than just the Eagles' win over the Vikings to watch this past weekend. For Lehigh, the hits just keep on coming. If there was any doubt about it in 2008, the first two duals of 2009 erased those thoughts. No. 9 Lehigh is firmly on the national stage in wrestling again after prevailing against perennial power No. 16 Penn State in a 17-16 thriller that couldn't have been closer . Lehigh picked a fine day to be on national television on FCS Pacific. After mauling West Virginia 35-3 on Friday, Lehigh started out strong at Rec Hall in State College, PA with two major decisions that gave Lehigh bonus points - one by junior 184 lb David Craig (12-2 over Jack Decker) and another by freshman 197 lb Joe Kennedy (15-3 over Clay Steadman). I'll let the release do the rest of the talking: The dual began at 174 with a wild battle between 14th ranked sophomore 174 lb Alex Caruso and No. 15 Quentin Wright. Caruso scored the opening takedown in the first ...

This blog posting is basically a hodge-podge of different things I wanted to mention before 2008 comes to a close. My YouTube highlight film of Lehigh/Lafayette is still in the process of getting done (I forgot how much of a pain in the you-know-what it is to go through game film to make a ten-minute highlight reel), as is my announcement about the LFN "Hawks of the Year" (which, if I ever can get the hang of it, will have YouTube support as well). But those, alas, will have to wait until 2009 to be complete. I've archived pretty much all of the Lehigh game wrap-ups for 2008 from the mainstream media on the CSN Log , before it's gone to the dusty archives of the Easton Express-Times and Allentown Morning Call . I've also been archiving much of the press clippings from the rest of the Patriot League, Richmond, and other schools. It's a big job - and I'm working to make it less so. I also recently helped pick the College Sporting News Fab 50, as well as...

When I heard that the temperate Pacific Northwest was getting hit by snow from my grandmother, I knew that the Lehigh men's basketball game versus Washington may have been in trouble. And while this picture of a snowman next to Seattle's space needle isn't necessarily a sign of the Apocalypse (though I'm still debating if the course of events that put the Eagles are in the NFL playoffs - a historic blowout of the Cowboys, alongside wins by the Texans and Raiders - the Raiders , fer Crissakes! - may very well be), it was enough to show that the Washington game would be postponed officially - and most likely cancelled. It's worth mentioning, from the official release, what the men's basketball team went through: 8:00 AM – Team departs Taylor Gym for New Jersey to play Monmouth 3:03 PM – Lehigh defeats Monmouth, 80-71 4:00 PM – Team departs Boylan Gymnasium for Newark/Liberty Int’l Airport 5:00 PM – Team arrives at EWR 6:40 PM – Finish checking in for flight 7:15...

(Photo Credit: Alexa Welch Edlund, The Richmond Times-Dispatch) This weekend, the Richmond Spiders came away with the 2008 Division I Football Championship . The Spiders, of the powerful Colonial Athletic Association used their powerful defense to stonewall four division champions. The first came against Eastern Kentucky of the OVC (38-10, at home), against Appalachian State of the SoCon (yes, that Appalachian State, on the road at Kidd Brewer Stadium) 33-13, and against Northern Iowa of the Missouri Valley Football Conference (21-20, on the road). The Spiders then proceeded to beat the Big Sky conference champions into submission at the site of the Division I National Championship game in Chattanooga, Tennessee 24-7 in front of a near-sold-out Finley Stadium and in front of a national ESPN2 audience. The broadcast was an effective three-hour commercial about the University of Richmond and their academics. First year head coach and Richmond football alumnus Mike London (who took ov...