Bruins and Elis Continue Winning Ways

It was a .500 week for Ivy League teams playing against non-league competition and--as one might expect--the always muddled Ivy football picture was no clearer after the completion of Saturday's contests than it was at the outset.

Columbia, Dartmouth, Yale and Brown emerged as this week's rain-soaked winners, but only the Bruins did it in classic football fashion.

The defending league co-champions (0-1 Ivies, 1-1 overall) churned through the soggy Providence turf for a methodical 28-10 win over intrastate rival URI. Led by their new and surprisingly impressive quarterback, Mark Whipple, Brown logged touchdowns in each of the four periods en route to a 321-total offense performance.

Whipple clicked on four of seven passes, and Bruin backs Wally Shields and Seth Morris combined for 170 yards rushing, but the biggest story of the game may have been the Brown defense.

Coming off a strong performance against Yale last week, the Bruins held URI to just 162 yards for the game. On the record sheets Brown is 0-1 in league play. On the field, they will be a force to reckon with.

Yale (1-0, 2-0), the other defending co-champ, also had to contend with the elements in a 23-12 victory at home over hapless UConn. The Elis presented the Huskies with eight fumbles on the afternoon, surrendering six of them.

In the end, though, the ineptness of the opposition (UConn did its best to match the Elis' courtesy, doling out three fumbles) and the raw strength of Yale's running game prevailed.

Brilliant halfback John Pagliaro carried 35 times for 112 yards, while QB Bob Rizzo and back Mike Sullivan added 89 more yards. Rizzo also went to the air through the drizzle, connecting on nine of 13 passes, six to John Spagnola.

Although it was less than classic football, it was a win--and Yale would have won in a blizzard.

Dartmouth (1-0, 2-0) escaped with its second straight win of the season, 17-14 over Holy Cross, in a game that could well serve as a definition of the word "thriller."

Nick Lowery's 40-yard field goal with :06 on the clock capped a frantic desperation drive by the Big Green to give Dartmouth an incredible three-point victory.

Underdog Holy Cross had stormed back to tie it after trailing, 14-0, early in the game, and appeared on the verge of winning in the closing minute. Reserve Crusdader quarterback Pete Colombo connected on a fourth-and-thirteen bomb to Chuck Mullen with 0:33 remaining, setting up a first-and-ten situation at the Dartmouth 13.

On the ensuing play, the Big Green's Jeff Hickey swatted Colombo's pitch upfield and pounced on it at the 24-yard line. For the first time in the game, enter Dartmouth's bionic flinger, Buddy Teevens.

Three quick strikes and only a few seconds later, the ball rested at the Holy Cross 23, and the call went out for Lowery. Lowery cooly drilled it home from the right hash mark, for the ballgame.

The fourth Ivy winner, Columbia (0-1, 1-1), played a tight game against Lafayette in yet another downpour, before icing its 21-10 victory with Gerry Fitzpatrick's 54-yard touchdown run with two minutes remaining.

Quarterback Kevin Burns could not muster much of an aerial attack against the Leopards (2-for-6, 35 yards), but the powerful Lion ground game slogged out 249 yards on 64 carries.

There were literally dozens of fumbles caused by Saturday's East coast storm-front, but only one concerned Princeton's surprisingly tough squad (0-1, 0-2), which lost to powerhouse Rutgers, 10-6, in college football's oldest rivalry. Tiger fullback Gary Larson coughed up the ball on the Scarlet Knights' 17-yard line with just 25 seconds left in the game, ending Princeton's hopes for a major early-season upset.

The defeat was the 12th straight in Palmer Stadium for the Tigers, and the seventh straight overall, but there were some good signs. The defense has proved stingy, running back Bobby Isom has been dancing past opposing defenses, and placekicker Chris Howe can boot with the best of them. But for now, the record is 0-2.

Cornell (0-1, 0-2) put up another good fight against a highly rated squad, with similar results. The Big Red punched out 375 total yards against Colgate, but the Red Raiders outslugged 'em with 468 big ones. Colgate 28, Cornell 22.

Penn (1-0, 1-1) rounded out the Ivy slate with an uninspiring 19-7 loss to Lehigh at Bethlehem, Pa. Penn's wishbone offense failed to put any points on the board until the fourth quarter.

For next week's games, check the Cube Predix, or maybe guess about the outcomes. In the Ivies, no one knows for sure.