CAUGHT IN A BIND: Princeton University receiver Matt Costello makes a catch in recent action. Last Saturday, senior star ­Costello had a game-high eight catches but it wasn’t nearly enough as Princeton fell 49-7 to Harvard. The Tigers, now 3-3 overall and 2-1 Ivy League, will look to regroup when they play at Cornell (0-6 overall, 0-3 Ivy) on November 1. (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)

For the third straight season, the Princeton University football team scored a touchdown in the waning seconds of its annual showdown against Harvard.

The last two years, those touchdowns came on circus catches by Princeton star receiver Roman Wilson ’14 and they provided the margin of victory in two famous triumphs over the Crimson.

Last Saturday, when the Tigers scored on a two-yard TD run by Joe Rhattigan with 28 seconds left in the fourth quarter, it was meaningless window dressing that prevented a shutout as Harvard rolled to a 49-7 victory over Princeton before 12,164 at Princeton Stadium.

A grim Princeton head coach Bob Surace didn’t mince words as he assessed the damage afterward.

“There are not a lot of positives when you look at the stat sheet,” said Surace whose team was outgained 698 yards to 244 in dropping to 3-3 overall and 2-1 Ivy League.

“We are going to have to find our way and come back tomorrow and move forward. That is what you have to do in life and it is what we have to do in sports. I am very confident that the leaders on the team will do that and we’ll come back and we will find a way to be a better team and better coaches. I am confident of myself and my coaching staff will do the same thing. Our butts are going to be sore because they got kicked.”

Senior running back Will Powers and his teammates had the sense early on that they had run into a buzz-saw in Harvard, which improved to 6-0 overall and 3-0 Ivy with the victory.

“We could tell that we were in a dogfight from the very beginning, they were a very physical team,” said Powers, who was Princeton’s leading rusher in the defeat with 26 yards on six carries.

“They just out-physicaled us today and exposed some weaknesses. It is something we are going to remember but we will move forward and start working tomorrow.”

Senior quarterback and co-captain Quinn Epperly acknowledged that the Tiger offense misfired all afternoon.

“We couldn’t get anything going in the running game, we didn’t make any big plays in the passing game,” said Epperly, who went 12-of-20 passing for 66 yards. “Hats off to their defense as a whole for the fact that they did stop us.”

The Princeton defense, meanwhile, couldn’t slow the Crimson juggernaut.

“They are good,” said senior linebacker and co-captain Mike Zeuli. “We just needed to play more physical and get in our gaps but we didn’t and they were able to push us around and get some good runs.”

Princeton started getting pushed around in the first quarter as Harvard jumped out to a 7-0 lead after a 39-yard touchdown pass from Conner Hempel to Joseph Foster.

Hempel was a one-man wrecking crew in the second quarter, accounting for three touchdowns, one on a 49-yard aerial to Seitu Smith and two on scoring runs of one yard and 14 yards. Sparked by Hempel’s heroics, Harvard took a 28-0 lead into halftime.

Having rallied in its wins over Harvard in 2012 and 2013, there was no comeback for Princeton on Saturday. The Crimson got the lone score of the third quarter on a 33-yard run by Paul Stanton to extend their lead to 35-0.

In the fourth quarter, Hempel got his third TD pass of the afternoon, hitting Anthon Firkser on a 42-yard scoring strike as the lead increased to 42-0. Hempel’s back-up, Scott Hosch, got into the act as he found Matt Brown on a 10-yard touchdown pass to make it 49-0 midway through the fourth quarter.

Showing some pluck, Princeton did put together a 60-yard scoring march late in the quarter, culminating with the Rhattigan touchdown run.

Surace tipped his hat to Hempel, who hit on 35-of-31 passes for 382 yards and rushed for 52.

“Their quarterback player played terrifically,” said Surace. “I don’t remember one guy impacting a game against us like that, maybe the Lehigh receiver (Ryan Spadola) a couple of years ago. It was probably one of the two finest performances against us.”

To compound matters, it was also a Murphy’s Law kind of day for the Tigers.

“It just seemed that whatever it is, everything that could have went wrong, went wrong and it went wrong against a team that was going to make you pay for every mistake,” lamented Surace.

“Our margin for error is a lot slimmer. It is probably slimmer right now than any time I have been here just because we do have to grind out drives more than we ever had.”

Epperly, for his part, vowed that the Tigers are going to keep grinding as they prepare to play at Cornell (0-6 overall, 0-3 Ivy) on November 1.

“We just have to work as hard as we can,” said Epperly. “As much as this one tastes bad, we have to move on. It is only one loss, there is still a season to play. I know the guys in the locker room are not going to back down and it is not going to be a quitting situation. We are going to come out and we are going to be ready to play down the road. You can just draw on the fact that we are going to fight. I think all you can do at this point is to come back and prepare as much as we can next week and just be ready for a fight next weekend.”