Javarone boots Princeton into overtime, first place

It's the time of year for trick-or-treating, but on Oct. 29 at Princeton Stadium, the football team wasn't tricked.

The Tigers (6-2 overall, 4-1 Ivy League) overcame Cornell's devious special teams to earn a critical Ivy League win off the right foot of senior kicker Derek Javarone. After knotting the game with a field goal late in the fourth quarter, Javarone calmly booted in the game-winner during overtime to give Princeton a 20-17 victory over the Big Red (4-4, 2-3).

"I'm very proud of the team's effort, [which was as strong] as it has been all year," head coach Rogers Hughes said. "We've come from behind a number of times. The team showed great resilience."

For the second straight week, the Tigers saw the lead snatched from their paws in the fourth quarter, and for the second straight week, they responded and took it back.

There would be no 93-yard kickoff return by senior cornerback Jay McCareins this time, but Princeton found another way to get back in the game: a methodical 18-play, 63-yard march down the field that lasted over eight minutes.

The Tigers picked up four first downs on the drive, three coming on third down and one on fourth. In each instance, junior quarterback Jeff Terrell found an open receiver and didn't miss, twice hooking up with junior wide receiver Brian Brigham and once with both senior tight end Jon Dekker and junior wide receiver Brian Shields.

When the drive finally stalled at the Cornell 15-yard line with two minutes, 17 seconds to play, Javarone lined up for what would be the first of two critical kicks. He had missed a kick earlier in the game, but this time he nailed the pigskin straight through the uprights to knot the score at 17.

Princeton's defense kept the Big Red's offense at bay, forcing overtime and setting up Javarone's winning field goal.

Cornell got the ball first on the 25-yard line, but on second-and-eight from the 23, quarterback Ryan Kuhn launched a pass to the left sideline that junior cornerback Tim Strickland jumped in front of to come away with an interception.

On their ensuring possession, also starting from the 25-yard line, the Tigers called three conservative running plays before trusting the ball and the game to Javarone's foot. He knocked the 35-yard attempt into the wind and through the goalposts, giving Princeton the win and more than redeeming his first half miss.

"I came up to [Javarone] at halftime and said, 'Derek, we're going to need you to win the game, so get out of the jar,' " Hughes said. "He was fine, and he kicked two good ones."

With his late-game heroics, Javarone not only won the game for his team, but he also set a new Ivy League record with his 42nd career field goal.

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"It's the team effort that matters," Javarone said, "[but] the fact that that last field goal broke the record and won the game makes it really special."

Early on, it didn't look like any such heroics would be necessary, as the Tigers jumped to a 14-0 lead early in the second quarter.

Late in the first quarter, Dekker caught a short pass from Terrell at the Big Red's 10-yard line and bowled over several defenders to find the end zone for the game's first score. Terrell finished the day with 190 yards through the air, 71 of them on five completions to Dekker.

Then, early in the second quarter, sophomore fullback Rob Toresco ran untouched into the end zone from the one-yard line, capping an eight-play, 72-yard drive that ate more than three minutes off the clock.

But the Tigers were unable to make the sort of game-changing plays responsible for their victory over Harvard a week earlier. With the offense sputtering badly throughout the second and third quarters, they watched their lead slowly disappear.

Along the way, Cornell threw a few tricks at Princeton. After scoring a field goal to put its first points on the board, the Big Red recovered an extremely unconventional onside kick. As the Cornell place kicker strode toward the ball to kick off, he intentionally fell to the ground, allowing another Big Red player to come from behind and squib the ball the necessary 10 yards for Cornell to recover.

The ploy took everyone on the field and in the stands by surprise, and the play wouldn't be the last shifty move by the Big Red.

Facing a fourth down with four yards to go late in the third quarter, Cornell faked a punt and completed a 15-yard pass that caught the Tigers off guard.

"It didn't really alarm us," Hughes said. "We just broke down on our coverage of the tight end at that time, but the onsides kick was well-executed."

Overall though, Princeton's defense performed well, holding the Big Red to only five-of-18 on third down and limiting Cornell's ground attack — the Ivy League's best — to 167 yards.

"If you'd have told me before that game that we were going to hold them as we did, I would have been surprised," Hughes said.

Still, the Tigers' defense did struggle early in the fourth quarter, as the Big Red marched 70 yards to find the end zone — and take the lead — for the first time all day with 10:32 to play. A two-point conversion gave Cornell 17 unanswered points and a 17-14 lead.

But Princeton's offense reawakened when it mattered most, mounting the methodical drive that set up Javarone's game-tying field goal.

"It goes back to leadership — when the chips are down, when our backs are against the wall, we're not panicking. It's, 'Ok, fellas, it's time to go, let's go,' and I think that's what happened on the last drive," Hughes said, noting his team's strong senior leadership.

Those senior leaders have two more games in their career. If they can keep the Tigers' momentum rolling, it could be some kind of treat: after this Saturday's victory over Penn, two wins mean an Ivy League title.