SPORTS BRIEF: O’Hagan out indefinitely with shoulder injury; Pizzotti to start Saturday

Senior Liam O’Hagan, the starting quaterback for the Harvard football team, is out indefinitely with a dislocated shoulder on his throwing arm, Crimson coach Tim Murphy confirmed yesterday.

O’Hagan injured his shoulder on a scramble out of the backfield during the third quarter of Harvard’s 20-13 loss at Lehigh on Saturday.

“It’s not out of the question that he could be out for the season, unfortunately,” Murphy said.

His injury means that senior quaterback Chris Pizzotti will start for the Crimson this Saturday when Harvard travels to Ithaca, N.Y. to play Cornell. Pizzotti started five games for the Crimson last year, when O’Hagan missed the first half of the season due to a suspension for violating unspecified team rules.

Third-stringer Collier Winters will back up Pizzotti while O’Hagan is out. The freshman took over the number three job behind Pizzotti after junior Jeff Witt quit the team almost two weeks ago.

The Crimson will see the return of sophomore running back Cheng Ho, who sat out the Lehigh game with an injured shoulder of his own.

“He will definitely play,” Murphy said of Ho.

Also slated to return for Harvard this week is senior defensive tackle Matt Drazba, who has yet to play in 2007 thanks to an offseason ankle injury suffered during a team-sanctioned basketball game.

The Crimson is 1-2 on the season, having suffered losses to Holy Cross in Week 3 in addition to the setback against Lehigh last week. Harvard won its lone Ivy League game of the year, a 24-17 game against Brown in the Crimson’s first-ever night game two weeks ago.

Following last week’s loss to Lehigh, three Harvard players were named to the Ivy League honor roll. Pizzotti, freshman running back Gino Gordon, and captain defensive end Brad Bagdis all made the weekly list, a week after O’Hagan, senior wide receiver Corey Mazza, and senior cornerback Steve Williams were chosen.

Williams was also honored last week as the Sporting News National and Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week following the Crimson’s Week 2 win over Brown.

—CRIMSON SPORTS STAFF