Week Eight of the Ivy League season featured a showdown between teams vying for a share of the Ivy League lead with Dartmouth, and two video games disguised as tackle football.
Harvard 26, Columbia 6
Harvard made a couple of interceptions deep in its own end to stop Columbia drives in the first half and got some breathing room with a pair of touchdowns three minutes apart in the fourth quarter to improve to 7-1 overall and 4-1 in the Ivy League. Columbia, held off the scoreboard until the final two minutes, fell to 5-3 and 3-2 in the Ivy League in front of 7,011 at Harvard Stadium.
Aided by the two interceptions, the Crimson led, 13-0, until midway through the fourth quarter when Charles DePrima first caught an 11-yard touchdown pass and then ran 52 yards for another score. Columbia's lone points came on a two-yard Cole Freeman run with 1:44 left.
With two weeks remaining in the season, Harvard and Dartmouth are in a dead heat at the top of the Ivy standings at 4-1. While the Big Green has games at Cornell and Brown left, Harvard will be playing at Penn and against Yale, teams that combined for 123 points yesterday.
Penn 67, Cornell 49
Defense was optional in Ithaca as Penn improved to 4-4 overall and 2-3 in the Ivy League while Cornell was falling to 3-5 and 2-3. Here are just some of the numbers from the game:
• Penn QB Liam O'Brien: 22-30–341 yards, 6 TDs, 0 int
• Cornell QB Jameson Wang: 33-54–401 yards, 5 TDs, 3 int
• Penn WR Jared Richardson: 9 catches for 141 yards (111 after the catch), 3 TDs
• Cornell WR Samuel Musungu: 14 catches for 148 yards, 3 TDs
• Penn TB Malachi Hosley: 192 yards rushing, two TDs
• Combined yards: 1,196 (Penn 627, Cornell 569)
• Combined first downs: 60 (33 Penn, 27 Cornell)
• Combined punts: 2 (1 each)
• Listed attendance: 0
Editor's Note: And if you are wondering if that's a record for most combined points in an Ivy League game since the start of formal conference play in 1956, you won't find that information here because if a simple record like that is in the Ivy League Record Book I couldn't find it.
Yale 56, Brown 34
On any other day the offensive explosion turned in by Yale while improving to 5-3 overall and 2-3 in the Ivy League and by Brown while falling to 3-5 and 2-3 would be headline worthy. Here are numbers from that game, played in front of 4,742 in New Haven:
• Yale QB Grant Jordan: 29-40–372 yards, 6 TDs, 0 ints
• Brown QB Jake Willcox: 32-48–273 yards, 1 TD, 3 ints
• Yale WR David Pantellis: 12 catches for 195 yards, 3 TDs
• Brown WR Mark Mahoney, 10 catches for 115 yards, 1 TD
• Combined first downs: 54 (Brown 33, Yale 21)
• Combined yards: 969 (Yale 510, Brown 459)
• Combined punts: 3 (Yale 2, Brown 1)
From the Ivy League website:
Entering Saturday, an Ivy League quarterback had thrown for six touchdowns in a single game just four times. That number is now six. Both Yale’s Grant Jordan and Penn’s Liam O’Brien threw six touchdowns, and each added a rushing score for good measure, to lead their teams to wins.
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In games featuring Dartmouth's non-conference opponents, sanity prevailed:
• Fordham saw its one-game winning streak snapped with a 28-27 loss at Bucknell. The Rams are now 1-9.
• Central Connecticut used a fourth-quarter TD pass to come from behind and improve to 5-5 with a 21-17 win over Stonehill.
• Merrimack, which was shut out by Robert Morris in its last game (6-0) had a bye and still sits at 4-5.
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EXTRA POINT
When blue jays first discovered our video bird feeder it was fun to watch them gobble up seed but they are starting to annoy me. You know how a baseball player sometimes digs into the dirt in the batter's box with his cleats to improve his stance? The visitors to our bird feeder are not Toronto Blue Jays but they are acting like them. While eating they continuously spray seed to the ground with their feet. They kick a lot more to the ground than they ever eat.
