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Tiger Football Opens With 28-13 Loss to Lehigh But Fourth Quarter Burst Gives Reason for Hope
By Bill Alden
Princeton University wideout B.J. Szymanski found himself struggling to shake the cobwebs out of his head midway through the second quarter against Lehigh last Saturday night.
After snagging a short pass and turning it into a 25-yard gain, Szymanski was leveled by a Mountain Hawk defender on a brutal helmet-on-helmet shot. After laying prone on the field for a few minutes, the junior made his way to the sidelines where he tried to convince the Tiger trainers that he had all of his faculties.
At the time, Szymanski wasn't the only Tiger feeling out of sorts as Princeton had fallen into a 14-0 first quarter hole against 20th-ranked Lehigh before an opening night crowd of 15,205 at Princeton Stadium. The Tigers' malaise deepened as the Mountain Hawks added two more touchdowns in the third quarter to take a 28-0 lead into the final 15 minutes.
But with Szymanski having cleared his head by the fourth quarter, he delivered a jolt to Lehigh as he raced down the sideline on the receiving end of a perfectly thrown 75-yard touchdown bomb from Matt Verbit.
The play sparked Princeton, which added another touchdown on a circus catch by Blair Morrison to make the final score a more respectable 28-13 and sent the Tiger fans home with a good taste in their mouths and some hope for the future.
As Szymanski reflected on getting the Tigers on the board, he said the play was the result of some clear thinking on his part. "I was telling coach that these guys were playing our underneath stuff, it's a play we work on all year," said the 6'5, 190-pound Szymanski, who ended the night with three catches for 105 yards.
"It was nothing special or razzle-dazzle, we just wanted to beat 'em deep. Matt threw an unbelievable ball and all I did was to catch what I'm supposed to catch."
The touchdown, though, was little consolation in an evening dominated by the battle-tested Mountain Hawks, now 3-0, who have won their last seven games against Princeton.
"We made way too many mistakes," acknowledged Szymanski, a native of Wichita Falls, Texas who is also a star centerfielder for the Princeton baseball team.
"I think everybody has a lot to improve on. We receivers need to work on running routes to the right depth and getting open. We have to hang on to the ball better. There are a lot of things we all need to do to polish up."
A weary-looking Tiger head coach Roger Hughes concurred as he analyzed his team's season-opening effort. "It's obvious that we need some work," said Hughes, who is now 12-18 in his tenure guiding the Tigers. "We made a lot of first-game mistakes tonight. There were a lot of glassy-eyed kids out there tonight. We'll look at the tape and I promise you we'll get better."
Hughes knows he's going to see a lot of areas for improvement when he breaks down that film. "In the first half, whenever we got ourselves going offensively we found a way to shoot ourselves in the foot," said Hughes, whose club lost three fumbles. "Defensively we had some issues with covering the tight end. We made their tight end Adam Bergen (12 catches for 173 yards) look like an All-American. We've got to get that straightened out. We also had some issues on substitutions and trying to get the right guys on the field."
The up-and down performance of junior quarterback Verbit, making his fifth college start, epitomized the Tigers' uneven effort. On the good side, Verbit went 16-for-36, passing for 296 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 70 yards. Yet mixed in with those good numbers was an interception and all three of Princeton's lost fumbles.
"Matt was a little jittery at times," added Hughes. "He's got to do a better job of taking care of the ball when he runs with it."
While the Tigers collectively showed some opening night jitters, Hughes had no qualms about his team's attitude. "The way we hung in there in the second half showed me a little about our team's character," said Hughes, whose club will look to break into the win column when it plays at Lafayette this Saturday.
"I was proud of how our kids fought to the final gun. We didn't fold our tent. When you looked at them on the sidelines you could still see the determination in their eyes. If you have an attitude and a work ethic like that, you always have a chance."
Szymanski, for his part, believes that the Tigers' late productivity is reason for optimism. "After a loss, you always try to look at the good things to build on," said Szymanski. "I think how we played later in the game gives us something to build on. We finally settled down in the fourth quarter and started making plays."
If the Tigers can bottle that fourth quarter effort and produce it for a full 60 minutes, they will have more than a chance to come up with some wins.
