Recently in Sports

Out of the deep blues of 12 losses in the previous 13 games, Princeton scored 30 offensive points in 8:31 of possession time last Saturday to improbably shrink a 26-point Harvard lead down to three.

 

But even at a thinking man’s university like Princeton, it is not incumbent on the engineer of that rally to explain it as much as it is his duty to sustain it.

 

“I don’t know exactly what it was,” said quarterback Tommy Wornham ’12. “I just think no one was overthinking anything, trying to score a million points on one play. [We were] just playing the game we practiced all week.

 

“Like [offensive coordinator James] Perry has said for a year and a half. ‘That three touchdown flurry will come – trust it.’”

 

Now, can anyone at Harvard Stadium who saw it trust his or her eyes? The Tigers still gave up two fourth quarter touchdowns and fell to 1-2 in the Ivy League (1-5 overall) with a wild 56-39 loss. Exhilarating as that second half was, it only represented progress should it carry over into Saturday’s 1 p.m. game on Powers Field at Princeton Stadium against Cornell, still winless in the league.

 

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. –  Difficult as it might be to find a place to start this report, following 95 points and 1,116 yards, Princeton’s 56-39 loss to Harvard Saturday came down to the Tigers’ inability to get a stop.

 

What a wild ride it was, though. Down 35-9 in the third quarter, seeming inexorably on their way to a 13th loss in 14 mostly dismal games, the Tigers’ offense suddenly caught fire, with quarterback Tommy Wornham ’12 making throws he had not consistently made all year and Princeton finally finishing the drives it hadn’t in two seasons.

 

With running back Chuck Dibilio ’15 seeming to get stronger with each of 23 runs, with the quarterback playing pitch-and-catch with Matt Costello ’15 and Shane Wilkinson, ’13, and with the help of successful onside kicks, the Tigers scored three touchdowns and two two-point conversions to incredibly get the score back to 42-39 with 13:09 to play.  

           

In recent years, the finish line of the cross country Heptagonal championships has been dominated by orange and black, as the Princeton men’s and women’s teams have combined to win nine of the last 10 titles. But this year, the entire course will have a Princeton theme – in a departure from tradition, the meet will be held at the Tigers’ own West Windsor Fields on Saturday, Oct. 29.

 

Running for the Ivy League championship at home will be a new experience for both teams. The Heps meet has been held at Van Cortland Park in the Bronx every year since 1981 for the women and 1979 for the men.

 

“We’ve done a lot more work on the course this year than we’ve ever done,” Donn Cabral ’12 said, explaining that not only is it the site of Heps, but the team’s other big races will be run on similar courses. “We’ve been getting used to the different parts of the race and how we’re going to attack each part.”

 

A home-course advantage for the Tigers is the last thing that the rest of the men’s field wants to see. Princeton has won four of the last five championships – losing to Columbia by the smallest possible margin in 2009 but reclaiming the title with a comfortable win last fall – and appears stronger than ever. The Tigers finished fourth in a field that included 21 of the country’s top 30 teams at the Wisconsin adidas Invitational and jumped up to No. 9 in last week’s coaches’ poll, their highest national ranking since 1998.

 

“We have a ton of confidence right now going into Heps, because we know that if everything goes as planned, we have some leeway,” Cabral said.

 

At the head of the Tigers’ pack is Cabral, who finished fourth in Wisconsin and will be trying to defend his title as the individual Ancient Eight champion. As a junior last fall, Cabral – despite feeling under the weather and a little bit “past his peak” in training – beat 2009 champion Dan Chenoweth of Harvard by more than 10 seconds, finishing with the second-fastest time in Heps history at 24:03.8.

 

Being the defending champion is no guarantee of success, as Chenoweth discovered a year ago. But Cabral’s expectations could not be higher for his final Heps meet.

 

“I’m just as confident about my individual chances at Heps as I am about the team’s chances,” he said. “For both of them, I think that we can have just a good day and still win. And having won last year, against a great runner who’s now graduated, is definitely giving me confidence this year.”

 

Purely from history, the women’s team should be even more confident – while the men were defeated two years ago, the women are five for their last five at Heps, winning every meet by more than 20 points. But after losing strong racers such as Sarah Cummings ’11 and Ashley Higginson ’11, the Tigers may have a tougher fight on their hands this year.

 

After a 1-9 season in 2010, Bob Surace ’90 said he found out who the fighters were. And at 1-4 this year, the Princeton coach is about to identify them again.

 

The Tigers, who finished off Columbia and who were one play away from a remarkable upset at Hampton, were flattened last week in a 34-0 loss at Brown. Next we’ll see whether their spirits were crushed.

 

 “They are angry, frustrated,” said Surace. “We’ll see whether they channel it, the way I am, into Harvard.”

 

Just at the point where they believed they were finding themselves, the Tigers were manhandled, albeit by an Ivy League contender. Another, Harvard, waits for them Saturday in Cambridge, so the schedule has not become the Tigers’ friend. But Princeton has proven to be its own worst enemy at times because of repeated failures to make well-timed plays on both sides of the ball.

 

“The red zone [five touchdowns for the Princeton offense in 22 visits] is the elephant in the room,” said Surace.

 

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Coming off a 1-9 season and starting similarly slowly this year, the Tigers has insisted that the feeling nevertheless has been different. And a win over Columbia followed by a remarkably close loss at Hampton last week seemed to back up the team’s optimism.

 

But that was before Princeton went backwards Saturday in almost every way during a desultory 34-0 loss to 4-1 Brown.

 

“You think you see progress and then the other team makes more plays than you, out executes you, ” said Coach Bob Surace ’90. “It’s not good.”

 

Princeton’s 34-9 loss to an average-at-best Bucknell team in week two was maddening for the self destructiveness of six turnovers. This one was just a dreary manhandling from start to finish.

 

There was one deflating turnover: the third interception run back from a touchdown off quarterback Tommy Wornham ’12 this season, on the game’s third snap. But 59 minutes remained and never did Princeton (1-4 overall, 1-1 Ivy) get a big stop or cash an opportunity.

 

The Bears, despite a narrow loss to Harvard in their Ivy opener, might still turn out to be the best team in the league, and they proved far superior to a Princeton squad that had believed itself improving enough to hang with the Ivy elite.

 

Instead, the Tigers struggled, beginning with the Wornham interception. When it looked like they would at least get on the scoreboard before halftime, a fourth-down drop by a receiver Matt Costello ’15 halted the drive. Linebacker Tom Kingsbury ’13 had a chance to intercept a deflected pass but could not hold on.

 

While that best chance for a turnover wound up on the ground, Princeton still committed just that one turnover of its own and only three penalties. The game’s result was a lot more about what Brown did to Princeton than what Princeton did to itself.

 

Princeton leads the Ivy League in rushing with 180 yards per game. Chuck Dibilio ’15 ran for 147 at Hampton last week to become the Ancient Eight’s rookie of the week for the second time in four games and followed Brian Mills ’14 as the second 100-yard-plus gainer for the Tigers in two weeks.

 

“In the last two years, I haven’t seen an offensive front and running backs play as well as ours did against as good a defense as Hampton’s,” said offensive coordinator James Perry. “They really have some athletes.”

 

The Tigers pounded for 256 ground yards against a Hampton defense believed to have more talent than any in the Ivy League. Saturday afternoon at Brown, the Tigers’ next challenge will be pushing through for the final yards in drives: Princeton has only two rushing touchdowns this season and has converted just five of 19 opportunities inside their opponents’ 20-yard line.

 

Princeton’s red-zone package has been damaged by the loss for the season of Connor Kelley ’14 (knee), a quarterback-turned-receiver who was expected to take some snaps in a Wildcat formation. Another quarterback, Quinn Epperly ’15, ran an end-around option for a first down on Princeton’s one touchdown drive in the 28-23 loss to Hampton and will get further opportunities, as will Isaac Serwanga ’12 , who had his best game with seven catches at Hampton and has the size (6 feet, 3 inches) to come down with balls thrown into the end zone against mostly smaller cornerbacks.

 

Against Columbia, quarterback Tommy Wornham ’12 shook off a second interception return in two weeks to lead the Tigers back to their first win in 10 games. He could have had a better day, however, at Hampton. Wornham (19-for-39 with one interception) warmed up in the second half but still failed to complete a pass into the end zone on Princeton’s final three offensive plays.

 

 “Yeah, [receivers] were open,” Wornham said. “I need to throw the ball harder, make better decisions earlier, put the ball into a better spot.

 

“The routes were there, we had good designs down there. Hampton did play more [man-to-man coverage] in the end, made the windows a little tighter, but I’m a college football player. I need to put those balls in there.”

 

The quarterback’s performance has been up and down, but his confidence remains high, which is reflective of the team. There is a clear vibe that the Tigers feel they are improving.

 

HAMPTON, Va. - The last of six catches by Matt Costello ’15, following a 15-yard Hampton punt, put Princeton just nine yards away from a go-ahead touchdown.

 

The Tigers, who scored one touchdown in six previous red-zone opportunities, first put the ball in the hands of Chuck Dibilio ’15, who gained the last of three of his 147 yards straight into the line, leaving the Tigers too far away to run it three more times.

 

“Now, we’re in a passing situation,” said Coach Bob Surace ’90. “Hampton’s safeties are so good and play so close to the line, it’s very hard to run the ball in from there.”

 

It got harder when Matt Allen ’12 was called for holding, putting the Tigers in third-and-goal from the 16. Ultimately Hampton wrapped up its 28-23 win on fourth and long, when Tommy Wornham ’12’s pass for Dibilio was broken up the in the end zone by Delbert Tyler, dropping the Tigers to 1-3.

 

Coming oh-so-close to what would have been a remarkable win on the road against a team thought to be out of Princeton’s class only will begin to pay dividends if next week at Brown, the Tigers score more than one touchdown and don’t take two holding calls – including a previous drive-killing one by Kevin Mill ’13 – that nullify field position inside the 10.

 

Hampton may be the fastest team Princeton will face all season, and keeping with that theme, we’ll get to the point quickly:

 

If the Tigers’ offense stops turning over the ball and committing red-zone penalties, the defense appears strong enough to carry this team back to respectability. 

 

Last Saturday Coach Bob Surace ’90’s squad stopped the critical miscues just long enough to break a school record 10-game losing streak with a 24-21 victory over Columbia.

 

Princeton held Columbia, whose quarterback Sean Bracket had hit five touchdown passes against the Tigers a year ago, to only two of 15 third-down conversions and made another stop on fourth down. Through three games, including one against Football Championship Subdivision offensive powerhouse Lehigh, Princeton opponents are converting on only 30 percent of third downs.

 

“We had only five missed tackles last week,” said Surace. “Last year there would have been five in a series.”

 

Of course it wasn’t going to be easy, not with another nine penalties and three turnovers, not after a school record 10-game losing streak, not after 23 long months since Princeton’s last Ivy League win and last home victory.

 

And for all the interminable days the Tigers suffered during a 1-9 season in 2010, the final three minutes of their 24-21 victory over Columbia Saturday night on Powers Field at Princeton Stadium still seemed to take 22 of those months. Coach Bob Surace ’90, with the best field goal kicker in the Ivy League in Patrick Jacob ’12, twice tried to run out the clock on fourth down at the Lions’ four yard line and twice failed, leaving Columbia only a field goal from an overtime.

 

On the Lions’ first crack, Steve Cody ‘12 and Andrew Starks ’13 ran down quarterback Sean Brackett a yard short on fourth down. And on Columbia’s last gasp, an interception by defensive back Harrison Daniels ’12 sealed the deal, despite repeated attempts by the Tigers, hard as they played, to make themselves miserable for another week.

 

 

“I really thought to go from the five to the opponent’s 30, that’s a lot of yards,” said Surace. “If they get their [kick] returns out to where they were getting them, somewhere between the 30 to the 40, they only have to go 30 yards.

 

“Our defense was playing really well. We were missing three guys [Jaiye Falusi ’12, Blake Clemons ’12, and Phil Bhaya ’14] in our secondary who started in the opening game. And against the best quarterback in the conference last year and the best scheme we go against all year long, I thought we executed really well.”

 

Bob Surace ’90 says the issue is “not confidence, but frustration.” But when a team turns over the ball six times in one game and an offensive line that performs like the Six Blocks of Granite through midfield commits rockhead penalties in the last 20 yards, it seems to look like plain old hyperventilation regardless.

 

The Tigers suffocated themselves with mistakes in a desultory 34-9 loss to Bucknell last week that looked depressingly like repeated defeats on the way to last year’s 1-9. But the Ivy League portion of the schedule begins at 6 p.m. Saturday against 0-2 Columbia on Powers Field at Princeton Stadium. So it’s not just hot air that fresh air can still blow away the smell of an 0-2 start.

 

“We’ve got to believe everything is up for grabs right now,” said defensive end Mike Catapano ’12. “It doesn’t matter what happened last year or who won last week by how much.”

 

Columbia beat Princeton the last two years by a lot, a combined 80-14. But that’s not as big an issue heading into this game as how much more failure Princeton can take before this season dissolves like the last.

 

 “We have three coaches who were at Temple, which hadn’t won much until the last few years,” said Surace. “Princeton hadn’t won an Ivy title in [20] years until my senior year, and Brown had gone through a stretch like that when (offensive coordinator James) Perry got there and helped turn things around.

 

“We have a little bit of a glass jaw. There has to be something to get you over your frustration of trying to score two touchdowns on one play. Or, as a defensive player, getting angry and trying to close more than one gap. And that’s my job to get them through that.

 

 “You aren’t going to win every play. You go to the next play.”

 

Photos by Gavin Schlissel ’13

 

If you’ve been to a Princeton home football game you’ve probably heard them. They provide the shouts that punctuate the moments between plays. Or maybe you’ve even seen them: Their neon body paint reflects the fluorescent stadium light, framing the front rows of the student section with a dim orange halo.

 

They are a band of cheerleaders – but they aren’t the band, and they aren’t the cheerleaders. They call themselves RAWR, and they are an unofficial student group dedicated to spreading school spirit – especially at sporting events.

 

The group formed last year when Bianca Reo ’12 and Adeline Brown ’13 started an informal email list advertising body paint and “rabble rousing” on football game days. The club was a hit, attracting a core group of about 20 students who meet at Frist Campus Center to paint each other and plan chants for the game.

 

WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL rallied from a 2-1 deficit to beat Penn, the defending Ivy League champion, in a 3-2 match at Dillon Gym Sept. 23. Lydia Rudnick ’13 led the Tigers with 18 kills, and freshman setter Ginny Willis had 48 assists in her Ivy debut. Princeton (8-5, 1-0 Ivy) continues its league schedule this weekend, hosting Harvard Sept. 30 and Dartmouth Oct. 1.

 

MEN’S WATER POLO bounced back from its first loss of the year – 11-10 at Johns Hopkins Sept. 23 – to defeat rival Navy in overtime, 11-9, at Annapolis Sept. 24. The Tigers added a second win later in the day, against George Washington, and will enter a weekend trip to California with a 10-1 record.

 

FIELD HOCKEY improved its Ivy record to 1-1 with a 3-2 win over Yale Sept. 24. Princeton (3-3), which never trailed in the game, received two goals from Sydney Kirby ’15 and one by Allison Behringer ’12.

 

In MEN’S SOCCER, Princeton’s scoring struggles continued as the Tigers fell to Monmouth, 2-1, in West Long Branch, N.J., Sept. 25. Antoine Hoppenot ’12 netted Princeton’s lone goal on a penalty kick. Through six games, the Tigers (1-4-1) have scored just four goals. Princeton will start Ivy play at Dartmouth Oct. 1.