Bears’ Buddy bullies Tigers

The Princeton defense was struggling enough before a first-half injury ended leading tackler Scott Britton’s season.

Without him, the Tigers had no answer for senior All-American receiver Buddy Farnham, who single-handedly dominated in Brown’s 34-17 victory Saturday.

Farnham reeled in 10 catches for 199 yards, including an 80-yard touchdown, and returned a kickoff 92 yards to paydirt. An 18-yard punt return gave Farnham 309 all-purpose yards for the game, the seventh-highest total in Ivy League history.

The victory was essential for the Bears (3-2, 1-1 Ivy) because of a nail-biting 24-21 loss to Harvard (3-2, 2-0) last month.

Meanwhile, the hapless Tigers (1-4, 0-2), which had already suffered a blowout home loss to Columbia (2-3, 1-1), were essentially eliminated from Ivy title contention. The last time a two-loss team shared the Ivy crown was in 1982, and there’s no indication that Princeton is capable of a five-game winning streak.

Not the only ones. Penn’s 20-17 overtime loss to Lafayette in the season’s second game was certainly heartbreaking, but the Quakers might feel a little better after the Leopards trounced Ivy League favorite Harvard, 35-18, Saturday in Boston.

Lafayette jumped out to a 28-3 halftime lead and stayed in cruise control from there. Crimson quarterback Collie Winters threw two touchdown passes in the final 6:05 to salvage a respectable 233 passing yards, but he still finished only 19-for-36 with one interception.

The Leopards also shut down Harvard’s rushing attack, which gained only 74 net yards on 2.2 yards per attempt.

Lafayette quarterback Rob Curley threw for two touchdowns and ran for another, while running back DeAndre Morrow gained 85 yards and scored two touchdowns on only 11 carries.

Faking it. In a punchless matchup marked by offensive ineptitude and seven combined turnovers, Yale relied on a star linebacker and a little trickery to score the decisive blow in a 7-0 victory over Lehigh.

Facing fourth-and-11 from the Lehigh 40-yard line in the third quarter, Bulldogs senior linebacker Paul Rice took a fake punt all the way for a touchdown.

“It’s kind of a blur,” Rice told Yale Athletics. “I caught the snap and saw I had two blockers in front, so I let the blocks develop. At some point I cut it back, then I headed to the sideline and I saw daylight.”

The teams combined for an anemic 146 passing yards. Yale quarterback Brook Hart was 12-for-31 for 86 yards and three interceptions, but the Lehigh duo of Chris Lum and J.B. Clark was nearly as inept, completing just eight of 28 passes for 60 yards and one interception.

Despite Yale’s offensive struggles, the staunch Bulldogs’ defense handed the Mountain Hawks their first shutout since 1986. Yale (3-2, 1-1) has allowed more than 14 points in a game only once this season, in a 31-14 loss to Lafayette.

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