The passing attack, arguably the most potent weapon in Harvard’s arsenal, was not in good working order at Ithaca on Saturday. But the running attack was. Backs Gino Gordon ’11 and freshman Treavor Scales rushed for 229 yards and three touchdowns, quarterback Collier Winters added a late rushing touchdown, and Harvard came away with a 28-10 victory over Cornell.
The win brought the team’s Ivy League record to 2-0 (3-1 overall). It was the first league loss for Cornell (1-1, 2-2).
Strong defensive play held the Big Red to 62 yards rushing and just nine first downs. Backup safety Brian Owusu, a freshman from Oxnard, California, made his presence felt with two first-half interceptions. He had previously seen special-teams action, but the pickoffs came on the second and third defensive downs of Owusu’s nascent career.
Gordon, Harvard’s top rusher, had sat out the team’s win at Lehigh with an injury. He was back in form at Cornell, gaining 137 yards on 22 carries and scoring a nine-yard touchdown.
Alternating with Gordon, Scales carried 23 times for 92 yards and two short-yardage touchdowns, his first as a Crimson ball-carrier. Scales had missed the Lehigh game because of the death of his grandmother, but a week earlier, in the last quarter of the Brown game, he had exhibited exceptional speed and shiftiness with a 78-yard touchdown run. The play was called back because of an illegal block.
Harvard mistakes kept the Cornell game close for three periods. Kicker Patrick Long ’10 missed a 25-yard field goal in the first quarter, and an illegal shift negated a 38-yard touchdown run by Gordon. A penalty after a Cornell punt returned the ball to the Big Red and led to a third-period score that cut Harvard’s lead to 14-10.
The Crimson locked it up in the final period, scoring first on a three-yard rush by Scales and then, with nine seconds to play, on a 15-yard scramble by junior quarterback Collier Winters.
Winters was often out of sync with his receivers, completing only nine of 25 pass attempts for 104 yards. Harvard hasn’t recorded such a low-yield passing day since a 19-12 defeat of Cornell in 1998 — and that game was played in a downpour.
Harvard has bested Cornell in eight of the teams’ last nine meetings. The win was the hundredth Crimson victory for head coach Tim Murphy, now in his sixteenth season at Soldiers Field.
The team returns to the Stadium this Saturday to face Lafayette, its third and last nonleague opponent, in a game that kicks off at noon. The Leopards (4-1, 1-0 Patriot League) came from behind last weekend to nip Columbia, 24-21, with 13 seconds to play. Lafayette had previously beaten two other Ivy opponents, gaining an overtime win against Penn, 20-17, and downing Yale, 31-14.…Harvard, Penn, and Columbia are still unbeaten in Ivy League competition.
~"cleat"
Harvard 7 7 0 14 - 28
Cornell 0 3 7 0 - 10
Attendance: 8,053
