Lwt. Football faces uphill battle vs. Tigers

The Penn lightweight football team has been talking confidently about getting off to a 2-0 start when it faces archrival Princeton at 7:30 p.m. tonight. The game will be played at Princeton's Freling Huysen Field, a field which gives the Tigers an advantage and some confidence of their own. "The field is shitty," Penn senior tight end Zach Chan said. "It's poorly lit, one end is totally dark, and it's on a hill." Penn will look for a balanced attack from the offense. The Quakers hope sophomore Greg Grabon can repeat his strong performance from the opening game against Cornell. Grabon is optimistic about the Quakers' ground game, despite the sloped field. "Hopefully, we won't have to go up hill too much," Grabon said. "But when we're going up hill, it just means Princeton's defenders won't have as far to fall when I run them over." Penn, however, doesn't expect this game to be easy. The Quakers will have to start stronger than they did in last year's season finale against the Tigers. In that game, Princeton returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown and went on to a lopsided victory. Penn has spent sufficient time in this week's practices preparing for Princeton's kick-return unit. "We have to shut down their special teams," Quakers coach Bill Wagner said. "We can't let them set the tempo of the game." On offense, Princeton's tempo settles down to the grind-it-out style of the wishbone, which is directed by quarterback Rich Barnett and features running back A.J. Ortega. "There's a lot of pressure on the front seven to stop them from running all over us," Penn nose guard Cameron Reilly said. "Whoever dominates the first couple of series will win the game." Penn's defensive players realize that outcome of the game relies heavily on how well they stop the wishbone offense. "If everybody keeps their responsibilities, it's not a hard offense to stop," Penn linebacker Mike Steib said. "They'll be lucky to score twice on us." The Quakers will try to keep their defense rested while they employ a ball-control offense. Penn will stay primarily with Grabon and senior co-captain Joel Correia for the running game. When Penn quarterback Matt Veneri throws, he'll be looking for senior wide receiver Clint Schmidt or Chan. Schmidt needs just 17 yards to break the Penn career receiving record. "We need to dominate on the ground," Chan said. "And we're a lot more confident in our passing game." If Penn's lightweight team is able to execute their game plan on both sides of the ball, it should be able to coast downhill to a second straight victory.