Outright, All Right
Fall Sports Wrapup
Scoreboard

Outright, All Right

Coach Steve Tosches chose quarterback Brock Harvey for the final series of plays. Behind by three points, 10-7, late in the fourth quarter of the season finale against Dartmouth, the Tigers needed a score to complete their quest for an undisputed Ivy League title. The senior quarterback moved Princeton down the field and into Big Green territory. With the game and its own Ivy-title hopes on the line, Dartmouth pulled out all the stops, blitzing, showing blitz and not blitzing, trying to befuddle and demoralize the Tigers.
Enter the joy and triumph of being Brock Harvey, a scrambler whose backfield antics had been stopping hearts all season. As Dartmouth coach John Lyons said through tight lips after the game: "We worried all week about Harvey breaking containment and using his speed." From the 23-yard line and with 15 seconds on the clock, the quarterback rolled right, then broke back to his left. With a clearing block by tailback Marc Washington '97, he raced for the endzone. Dartmouth's frantic defenders caught him at the one, but it wasn't enough.
Though the Big Green may have saved a touchdown and kept itself from defeat by stopping Harvey, Princeton set up for a field goal, and freshman place-kicker Alex Sierk tied the score at 10-10 with one second left in the game. When that second evaporated on the kickoff, the Tigers' tie gave them the title. Despite being winless in its last two games, Princeton got its first outright Ivy League championship in a generation, with a little help from Penn's Quakers (who clobbered title-contender Cornell, 37-18, in Philadelphia). It also redeemed Princeton's 21-13 upset loss to Yale at Palmer Stadium the week before, which had ended the Tigers' hopes for a perfect season, cost them a Big Three championship, and jeopardized their chances for the Ivy title.
But with everything up for grabs, Princeton's gallant defense gave the Tigers their chance at a fourth-quarter comeback. On a cold, overcast day with no wind, two of the league's premier defensive teams threw everything they had at each other. Hard, clean tackling and blocking from the opening whistle produced remarkably even statistics: Princeton ran 69 offensive plays to Dartmouth's 68, for 236 and 231 total yards, respectively. Dartmouth had 14 first downs, Princeton, 13. Dartmouth converted seven of 13 third downs, Princeton, six of 18, including four on its final drive.
The Big Green's offense struck first. After a fumbled snap sabotaged an attempted Dartmouth field goal on the opening drive, Princeton retaliated with its own run-and-pass attack, but stalled at the Dartmouth 17-yard line. Then, late in the second quarter, a wave of Dartmouth blockers began to crash through the middle of Princeton's line, with tailback Greg Smith riding its crest five to seven yards on nearly every play. Quarterback Jon Aljancic ran for a touchdown from the eight-yard line with just under three minutes left in the first half.
On the ensuing kickoff to Princeton, Damani Leech '98 dashed 47 yards up the sideline to Dartmouth's 48 to jump-start the offense. He'd barely sat down when quarterback Harry Nakielny '96, back in the quarterback rotation, passed to Washington for 14 yards, then to wide receiver Brett Budzinski '97 for 19 yards. A minute later, he found Kevin Duffy in the corner of the endzone, and the junior receiver managed to grab the ball with a defender draped over him. Sierk's kick tied the score at seven. Over the PA system, the announcer reported that in Philadelphia, Penn was destroying Cornell, 21-0. Both teams went into halftime knowing the final two quarters would decide if Princeton would be a lone champion or if Dartmouth, Penn, and Cornell would join it in a four-way tie, with each team finishing 5-2 in the league.
In the third quarter, Dartmouth drove 55 yards without a pass, kicking a 28-yard field goal for a 10-7 lead. It was Smith, Smith, Smith, up the middle or off the option. Princeton's cornerbacks took a beating but never broke. And the Tigers couldn't get consistent pursuit or fill from the inside. Whenever they did, Dartmouth's Aljancic and Smith pivoted and danced ahead for gains.
In the last quarter, each team played its own version of three downs and out. Throughout the game, Dartmouth's defense had stuffed Washington almost every time he touched the ball, Harvey hadn't gotten a first down, and Nakielny's passing had turned as cold as the bare hills behind the stadium. Happily, the Tiger defense had finally stopped Dartmouth's running and had pressured Aljancic into some unseemly passes. The teams had banged themselves weary, and the football changed sides seven times before Princeton took over on its own 36-yard line. It was behind, 10-7, with 4:25 left in the season.
Two plays later, on third and five, Big Green defenders engulfed Harvey, but he somehow got off a pass to fullback Brent Godek '96. The first of Harvey's two heroic plays of the drive, it gave Princeton a first down. And Harvey's second heroic play, a 22-yard scamper to the one-yard line, meant Tosches could go for a touchdown and the win, or kick a field goal and get a tie. He called a time out.
No real discussion ensued during the break, given that Penn was still dismantling Cornell and that Dartmouth had stopped Princeton's running game all day. Sierk came on for an all-important field goal. The freshman kicker had made four of nine field goals on the season and had been kicking left of center all day. But with the championship on the line, he made one of those microscopic adjustments that kickers spend hours practicing and drilled the ball up and through the uprights.
A week earlier, at Princeton's version of Homecoming, students were calling the contest with Yale "the little game." Dartmouth was "the big game." It's true that Yale had not beaten Princeton since 1990, and that the Tigers' tilts with Dartmouth (and Penn) had become the pivotal matchups. It's also true that Yale, at that point 2-6 on the season, was a 22-point underdog. Yale, however, periodically rejects its assigned role. So the Elis employed the natural elements-rain, wind, and a quarterback named Chris Hetherington-to stun Princeton in Palmer Stadium, beating it 21-13. An unbeaten Princeton team has played Yale 36 times, and has now lost or tied 20 of those contests.
The opening kickoff from the Bulldogs sailed in a northeasterly gale, and Princeton wrestled it down on its own eight-yard line-the first of six times the Tigers would start inside the 10. Yale blitzed on the first play, but a blown assignment left a hole for Harvey, and he turned it into a 92-yard touchdown. With just 20 seconds elapsed in the game, it was 7-0 Princeton, and for a fleeting moment, it looked as if the Elis were but lambs to the slaughter. Carmen Cozza, Yale's legendary coach, said afterward that he thought, "Oh no. Here goes a blowout." And Cozza had seen enough defeat this season to recognize it. In two of its losses, Yale had fallen to Penn, 16-6, and to Cornell, 38-10. But Hetherington, a muscle man at 6'3" and 235 pounds, was mended now. "With number seven in there, we're a different ball club," said Cozza.
Immediately after Harvey's spectacular run, sheets of rain began to sweep up the field behind Hetherington, who led Yale onward with an ease that worried the crowd and doubtless concerned the Tiger sideline. But Princeton's defense looked sluggish, as if the game had started a half hour earlier than expected. At his own 10-yard line, safety Tom Ludwig '98 stole a pass to save Princeton, and in came quarterback Nakielny. Three downs later, he shanked a punt of only 16 yards, to Princeton's 28. Then it was back to Hetherington, who tied the score at 7-7 on a series of option carries.
At the end of the first quarter, Harvey drove the Tigers to the Yale 13-yard line either by rolling out of the pocket or giving the ball to Washington. Facing a third down and eight, with the wind now behind him, he passed to Duffy, who had run across the field and into the endzone. When Sierk missed the extra point, making the score 13-7, the crowd of 21,000 knew it had every right to still feel anxious about this "little game."
The crowd felt even more anxious when-after Princeton opened the third quarter with a brief, inconclusive effort-it watched Yale campaign down the field in a leisurely nine-minute, 84-yard drive. But once again, the Tigers showed their ability to force turnovers. At the one-yard line, the Elis fumbled and cornerback Rich Hill '96 recovered to keep Yale out of the endzone. After that, the Tiger offense went nowhere.
In the fourth quarter, Yale missed a field goal from the Princeton 29 and the Tigers came onfield with a six-point lead and 9:27 left. Princeton needed to do something bold, but its confidence had shrunk like 100-percent cotton in the steady drizzle. So the offense ran the ball three times and punted to midfield.
After three quarters of cleat-mashing and rain, the field was muddy. Both teams had begun to slip and fall, conditions that generally favor the offense (which has the advantage of knowing where it's headed). And since Yale owned the ball 11 minutes in the third quarter and had it nine more in the fourth, its advantage over Princeton was considerable.
The anxious feeling turned to dread as the Eli quarterback broke tackles and slipped through the defense for one gain after another. Yale scored a touchdown, then kicked the extra point. It had a lead of one point, 14-13, with 3:35 left. Princeton had another chance or two, but Yale stripped the ball from Harvey in the end-zone for a quickie touchdown and made the final score 21-13. The "little" victory was big for Yale, but Princeton's defeat was bigger.
-Dan White '65
Dan White is director of the Alumni Council and a frequent contributor to PAW.

Fall Sports Wrapup

Scoreboard

Women's Cross Country
(2-1 overall; 1-1 Ivy)
IC4A-11th

Field Hockey*
(14-4 overall; 6-0 Ivy)
Princeton 3,
Syracuse 0
North Carolina 6,
Princeton 0

Football
(8-1-1 overall; 5-1-1 Ivy)
Yale 21, Princeton 13
Princeton 10, Dartmouth 10

Men's Soccer
(13-5 overall; 5-2 Ivy)
Princeton 3, Yale 0
James Madison 1,
Princeton 0

Women's Soccer
(9-8 overall; 3-4 Ivy)
Colgate 3, Princeton 1

Volleyball*
(30-3 overall; 6-1 Ivy)
Princeton 3, Brown 0
Princeton 3, Yale 0
Princeton 3, Penn 0
Harvard 3, Princeton 1
Princeton 3, Harvard 0

Lightweight Football
(1-5 overall; 1-3 ELFL)
Princeton 39, Penn 13