NOTEBOOK: Spadola’s Career Day Sparks Lehigh

Football is a team sport, but once in a while, one player steps up to provide that extra push for his team to overcome its opponents and grab the win. Saturday afternoon at Harvard Stadium, Lehigh sophomore wide receiver Ryan Spadola managed to do just that with his performance, propelling the visiting Mountain Hawks to a victory over the Crimson.

Spadola, Lehigh’s leading receiver, scored his first career touchdown in his previous game against Fordham but was held to just 33 yards on three catches in the first half against Harvard. It was a completely different story for the sophomore in the second half.

“When you get three, four, five wide receivers out there, it’s very difficult to double or triple a guy,” Crimson coach Tim Murphy said, “especially when we had kept them relatively bottled up in the first half.”

The Mountain Hawks’ first drive of the third quarter featured Spadola almost exclusively, ending with his four-yard touchdown catch in the back of the endzone. Spadola also had a hand in the visitors’ next drive, hauling in a short pass and running 22 yards to the one-yard line, setting up his team’s second touchdown of the afternoon.

Lehigh’s third drive after halftime would prove no different, but this time, it was all Spadola’s doing. On second and 10, the sophomore ran a near-perfect post route and, upon finding a hole in the Harvard secondary, sprinted 51 yards to the endzone virtually untouched.

“I saw it was man coverage on one of their second-string [corners],” Spadola said, “so I just had to beat him. I made sure I had time to get open, and me and [quarterback Chris Lum] were just on the same page.”

Spadola had 159 yards on nine catches in the third quarter alone and finished the day with 206 yards on 14 catches and two touchdowns, more than doubling his career total.

“This was certainly a breakout day for him,” said Mountain Hawk coach Andy Coen. “He’ll be the first to tell you he’s got to keep working. But...we’re obviously thrilled to have him on our football team.”

WINDY WEATHER

Football is played with 22 players on the field at a time—11 per team—and having any more than that on the field is always penalized. But on Saturday, there was an extra man on the field who definitely had a profound effect on the game: the wind.

“The wind is a factor,” Coen said, “and it could be a factor in every ballgame, so you have to be ready to account for it.”

Special teams took a huge hit in their effectiveness due to the weather. The day was best represented by a play in the third quarter, when Crimson punter Jake Dombrowski’s kick into the wind was caught by the gusts and spiraled out of control. The result: a net gain of zero yards.

But the wind also provided an opportunity for both offenses. Unfortunately for Harvard, only the visitors were able to capitalize on their chances.

With the wind at their backs in the third quarter, the Mountain Hawks gained a total of 195 yards in the air, a big difference from their 94 passing yards from the first half. With the help of this offensive explosion from its passing game, Lehigh was able to score on three consecutive drives, mounting a comeback that would prove to be just enough to knock off the Crimson.

“They maxed out the third-quarter wind advantage,” Murphy said. “They threw the ball extremely well, and we just couldn’t come up with the play to keep them out of the endzone.”

CALL OF THE DAY

With only a couple of minutes to go in the fourth quarter and Harvard down by four, the home team needed to score a touchdown in order to have a chance at winning the game.

After converting on fourth down, Crimson sophomore quarterback Colton Chapple threw a 28-yard strike to senior wide receiver Mike Cook, who appeared to land with both feet in the endzone. But the referee saw otherwise and ruled Cook out of bounds, resulting in an incomplete pass.

“[The ref] ruled it out of bounds,” Murphy said. “We won’t know until we see the film. I looked on the replay, and it looked like he was in. But again, that’s one play in a game. We had a lot of other opportunities. That was a big play, but we had a lot of other opportunities.”