Tigers’ football plays through mistakes to move into first-place tie
By: Justin Feil
"Nobody," said Princeton University head football coach Roger Hughes on Saturday, "plays an error-free games. It’s a matter of who comes up with the big play after an error has been made."
Two Tigers found redemption for errors and made big plays to help Princeton improve to 5-2 overall and move into a first-place tie at 3-1 in the Ivy League with a 20-17 overtime win over visiting Cornell on Saturday at Princeton Stadium.
Derek Javarone won the game and broke the Ivy record for career field goals with his 42nd, a 35-yard kick in overtime. The kick won it because Tim Strickland intercepted Cornell quarterback Ryan Kuhn’s third-down pass on the first possession of overtime.
Javarone also tied the game, 17-17, with 2:18 left in regulation, but missed for the first time this year to end the first half.
"It was great to come back from missing that first field goal," said Javarone, a senior who is now 13-for-14 on field goal attempts this season. "I give my teammates and my coaches credit for that. At halftime, they all came up to me and said, you’ll be in there and you’ll win it for us. I came out and I can’t really remember the kick that much. I was just in the zone."
Strickland also found himself in the right spot as well as he stepped in front of Kuhn’s intended target for his first interception of the season. The Big Red had taken their only lead of the game, 17-14, after Anthony Johnson got by Strickland early in the fourth quarter to set up Luke Siwula’s 6-yard touchdown run. Strickland’s overtime pick made up for the error.
"It feels good especially to make a big play in a big game like this especially after I had given up a deep ball earlier in the game," Strickland said. "I was hoping I’d get another opportunity to make up for it, and fortunately I did.
"We were in man coverage across the board and they ran a little out route, and also earlier in the first half they had run a similar route. I had thought, it’s third down and the same thing might be coming. It was a similar route and I was able to jump on it."
With it, the Tigers jumped on the opportunity to move into a first-place tie with three other teams Brown, Penn and Yale. Penn, which suffered its first loss of the season at Brown on Saturday, will host the Tigers noon Saturday. Princeton plays Yale in two weeks before closing at Dartmouth.
"I’m proud of the team’s effort," Hughes said. "As it has been all year, we’ve come from behind a number of times. We showed great resiliency, including Derek who missed one in the first half. I came into him at halftime and said, we’re going to need you to win the game so come out of the jar. He was fine and kicked two big ones. We came up with a great defensive effort when we needed to. And clearly we’ve got improvement now. We’re happy, but we’re not satisfied. Clearly it was a great win for the players."
Princeton jumped out to a 14-0 lead in the first 18 minutes of the game. Jeff Terrell hit Jon Dekker, who bullied through two tackles for an 11-yard touchdown in the first quarter, and Rob Toresco scored on a 1-yard run after Terrell’s 39-yard completion to Greg Fields with 12:37 to play in the second quarter. Princeton is 5-0 in games it has scored first in, 0-2 in games opponents have scored first.
Cornell dipped deep in its bag of tricks to chip away. The Big Red succeeded with a wild onsides kick in which their kicker pretended to trip and fall, got a first-down on a fake punt, attempted a flea flicker and generally tried to keep the Tigers guessing offensively and defensively all afternoon.
"What happened a couple times, they showed us things much different than they’d ever done," Hughes said. "That didn’t occur just on special teams. The way they blitzed us, they sent eight guys. They had never shown that. They were bringing things they had never brought. They took the game plan, we’re throwing everything at them we can."
Cornell’s offense, which included West Windsor-Plainsboro South graduate Brian McGuire, chipped away with two A.J. Weitsman field goals before the end of the first half. Weitsman’s 25-yarder to open the fourth quarter put the Big Red within striking distance and Siwula’s touchdown gave them their first lead. But the Tigers, who held Cornell’s Ivy leading rushing attack 100 yards under its average, did not allow another score. But the Tigers also didn’t score until the final minutes after looking so strong at the start.
"It’s not like we weren’t trying (to score)," Hughes said, explaining of the Big Red comeback, "I think there’s so much parity in the league that first of all it’s hard to shut anyone out, No. 1. No. 2, it’s just typical of the way games go. There are ebbs and flows of games. There’s going to be momentum changes."
Just when Cornell came all the way back with their fourth unanswered score to take the lead, the Tigers drove 18 plays in just over eight minutes for Javarone’s tying kick. On the drive, Princeton converted three third-down possessions, the first with 12 yards to go, the second with 11 yards to go and the third with four yards to go. The Tigers also converted a fourth-and-5 when Terrell found Dekker at the Cornell 26. Dekker finished with five catches for 71 yards. Brian Brigham had the first two third-down conversions on the drive on 20- and 21-yard catches from Terrell.
"We weren’t as crisp as needed to be today," Hughes said. "But the thing that this team has shown us time and time again, and it goes back to the leadership, when the chips are down, and our backs are against the wall, they’re not panicking. It’s, OK, fellows, it’s time to go. Let’s go. And that’s what happened on the last drive.
"That’s one of the things we work on a lot," he added of the third-down conversions. "That’s one of the things we’ve drastically improved from last year. That speaks to why we’ve been successful."
The Big Red got the ball back with 2:14 left and drove to the Princeton 30. But Kuhn was harassed by an onrushing Tiger defense and drew an intentional grounding penalty that took the Big Red out of field goal range to end regulation. It was another big play by the Tigers, and their defense, when they needed it most. And moments later, Javarone’s kick gave them the win and him the Ivy record.
"It’s the team record that matters," Javarone said. "The fact that that last field goal broke the record and won the game makes it really special."
Princeton is looking for another special win Saturday to remain in first place as it looks to snap Penn’s nine-game on-field winning streak against it. The Tigers earlier this year broke Harvard’s nine-game series streak. And there’s no such thing as too much redemption.

