Football blown out by Penn, falls out of league title contention

The football team continued its streak of impressive fourth quarter performances Saturday against Penn.

The rest of the game, though, was one of the most one-sided games ever at Princeton Stadium, as Penn (7-1 overall, 5-0 Ivy League) took a 30-0 lead into the fourth quarter to win by the final of 44-13.

During the first half the Quakers dominated the Tigers, outgaining Princeton (5-3, 3-2) 202 yards to 29. Penn also had 14 first downs to the Tigers' two, and 23 points to none for Princeton.

The story of the day was the Quaker defensive line, which filled every hole in the line, limiting the quick Tiger rushing game to two yards in the first half and 32 overall.

"I thought we dominated on the line, and we had great speed on defense," Penn cornerback Fred Plaza said.

One of Penn's game plans going into Saturday was to keep Princeton senior running back Cameron Atkinson from making a big play and getting his sixth 100-yard rushing game in seven tries.

They did that and more, holding Atkinson to a season-low 30 yards on 15 carries.

The Quakers started the game with possession of the ball and had a solid opening drive, getting to Princeton's 22 yard-line. Out of the nickel and dime packages, big plays on blitzes by junior defensive back Blake Perry, junior defensive end Joe Weiss and senior linebacker Drew Babinecz pushed the Quakers out of field goal range and forced them to punt.

Penn punted the ball to the Tiger six yard line, which was where Princeton started a very ugly three-play series. On each of the next Princeton offensive plays, the line went the wrong way and made the wrong blocks. On third down Verbit was sacked in the end zone. The safety gave Penn a 2-0 lead and good field position on the ensuing Tiger free kick.

Like in their first drive, the Quakers easily maneuvered down the field before getting stalled just inside Tiger territory. On third and six from Princeton's 31 yard-line, Penn quarterback Mike Mitchell made what could have been a costly mistake by putting the ball up in the middle of the field, right to unsuspecting sophomore defensive back Jay McCareins — who leads the league in interceptions with five. McCareins dropped the pass, though, and Mitchell made a 30 yard pass on the next play to get to Princeton's one yard-line. Quaker running back Michael Recchiuti punched the ball in on the next play, putting the Quakers up, 9-0.

The Tigers had another three and out on their next drive, and Penn drove down the field and scored on the first play in the second quarter to go up, 16-0.

Princeton got its first first-down of the game on the next drive, but was intercepted by Penn's Vince Alexander who tied McCareins for the Ivy lead with five interceptions.

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With 12 minutes, 54 seconds left in the second quarter, Penn again started driving the ball and made it to Princeton's 37 yard-line before a fluke interception ended it for the Quakers.

On Penn's third and five, quarterback Mike Mitchell dropped back for a short pass. He threw a hard pass a little before the wide receiver turned around, and the ball bounced off the receiver's helmet and into the arms of Princeton's Babinecz for his first interception of the season.

Again, though, the Tigers were three and out after an eight-yard pass, an incompletion, and then an Atkinson rush for a loss. The two teams went back and forth the rest of the quarter until, with 1:45 left in the half, the Tigers punted on fourth down from their own 17.

Off a low snap, freshman punter Eliot Bishop dropped to his knee with possession of the ball, thus downing it and turning the ball over to Penn on Princeton's three yard-line.

Two plays later, Michael Recchiuti ran the ball in to increase the lead to 23-0.

The Penn offense slowed down in the third quarter, but the Tigers could not start anything of their own. Midway through the quarter, Verbit threw an interception that was run back for a touchdown putting Penn up 30-0, but that was the only score as the defenses dominated both sides of the ball.

After the season-high crowd of 19,738 fans started leaving in droves, the Tiger offense finally picked up in the fourth quarter. Verbit mounted an 82-yard scoring drive to start the quarter, mixing effective passes to senior wide receiver Chisom Opara and rushes by Atkinson.

Princeton watched Penn drive the ball all the way after kickoff, but then mounted solid drives to put up two touchdowns and 157 yards in back-to-back series — several times the yardage previously put up in the game.

With the game now in trash minutes, Penn put another seven points on the board with 3:08 left, and established the 44-13 final score.

"The score reflects how we played today," head coach Roger Hughes said.

The lone bright spot for the Princeton offense was Opara, who pulled down five receptions for 109 yards. He accounted for more than half of Verbit's 194 passing yards.