Intercep-win

Eventually the Penn football team will play on one of those brisk, sunny days that make football a beautiful game.

Saturday the Quakers found out they’d have to wait at least another week for that ideal scenario.

With heavy, wind-blown rain pouring down on Franklin Field throughout the day, Penn built an early lead and the defense shut the door to close out a 9-0 slopfest against Yale. The shutout was the first for the Quakers since a 7-0 win against Princeton Nov. 3, 2007.

“It seems like every Saturday it’s been rain,” Penn coach Al Bagnoli said. “The only time I really wanted it to rain was the Villanova game, and we had bright sunshine and it was perfect. The rest of the time, when I’m hoping that it’s decent weather, … we’ve just really been battling the elements.”

The box score did not look pretty to say the least, but the Quakers (4-2, 3-0 Ivy) will gladly take the tick in the win column during a season that has seen eight different players throw a pass.

“It’s always rained when I’m out there this year it seems,” said senior quarterback Kyle Olson, who completed just eight of his 21 pass attempts in his third game behind center in 2009. But “as long as you get a win, it really doesn’t matter. I’m happy regardless.”

Olson was happy despite the fact that Penn defensive lineman Jared Sholly — all 250 pounds of him — outscored both offenses in the game with a 15-yard interception return for six points in the opening quarter. The interception was only part of a nightmare of a day for Yale quarterback Brook Hart, who was pressured relentlessly into four of Penn’s five sacks and was pulled for Patrick Witt in the fourth quarter after another interception.

The stellar senior cornerback tandem of Chris Wynn — who got the second pick — and Jonathan Moore allowed Bagnoli to bring the heat with his front seven.

“We weren’t shy to blitz. We put [the corners] out on an island … and they do a pretty good job in man [coverage],” Bagnoli said. “As long as you have that dynamic, you have a little bit more flexibility to challenge receivers and blitz people and try to overload pressures.”

Yale’s virtually nonexistent run game certainly took pressure off of the Quakers’ defense. Penn’s front seven got penetration into the backfield all afternoon, leading to fourteen tackles-for-loss, including four by sophomore linebacker Erik Rask. Bulldogs running back Rodney Reynolds got the bulk of the carries for Yale (3-3, 1-2 Ivy) but was held to just five yards on twelve carries.

Not lost in the minds of the two coaches, however, were the three missed field goals (54, 28, and 47 yarders) by Yale kicker Tom Mante that may have changed the complexion of the game. Bulldogs coach Tom Williams did not know what went wrong on the three kicks, but was disappointed in the blown chances.

“We moved the ball effectively enough to be in range to score points,” he said. “We [just] didn’t make the field goal opportunities that we had.”

The missed field goals allowed Penn to hold onto its tenuous lead, but the victory did not come without concerns. With starting quarterback Keiffer Garton out with a knee sprain, the Quakers used the Wildcat offense early and often.

“There’s no mystery to that offense,” Williams said. “If you’re a football historian, the single-wing offense has been around for a million years and they scored three points with it, so I don’t know how effective it was.”

The attack didn’t fool his players, either.

“It’s another formation that we have to defend against and to us that’s really how we treated it,” Yale linebacker Paul Rice added.

Special teams also proved to be a problem area for the Red and Blue, as Jake Lewko snapped the ball out of holder Kyle Derham’s reach on a failed extra point. Poor snaps by Lewko led to several other close calls on Scott Lopano punts, and a fourth-quarter partially blocked punt nearly changed the momentum of the game.

“I had the punt team over and everybody claimed they blocked their guy, so I don’t how that worked. I don’t know if a phantom came in and got it or — I have no idea,” Bagnoli quipped.

“We had some snapping issues which is very unlike Jake Lewko … He’s putting a little bit more strain on our freshman punter [Lopano] than I would like to see at this point.”

But a stout defense masked those mistakes, at least on this day, and for Penn the game looked like a bright Saturday afternoon as the team maintained its first place in the Ivy standings.

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