Author Archives: Nicholas Lombardo

Two weekends ago, instead of staying in New Haven for The Game like much of the Yale student body, the men’s and women’s swimming teams took the reverse trip, traveling to Boston, Mass., for the Terrier Invitational meet. Despite neither team claiming victory, the men’s team improved on last year’s performance by one spot, placing »

Get an early lead Last week, the Elis had another slow start against then last-place Princeton, trailing 21–3 early in the second half. Meanwhile, even though Harvard ended up losing what was basically an Ivy League title game to Penn, the contest was evenly played, evidenced by relatively balanced game statistics. Still, Harvard trailed 17–0 »

Both men’s and women’s swimming and diving opened their seasons with strong performances in New York this past weekend, but only one of the squads left the pool victorious. The men’s team suffered a close 151–149 loss to Columbia on the last event of the meet, while the women dominated the Lions 199–101, winning every »

TAKE RISKS TO SCORE Princeton enters its 132nd showdown with Yale tied for last in this year’s Ivy League standings. It is Princeton’s last home game of the season, and Yale’s last contest before The Game — and pride will be on the line. Princeton has had difficulty keeping their opponents from scoring, having been »

Four Yalies got the chance to perform at the highest level of men’s college tennis this past weekend at the ITA National Intercollegiate Indoor Championships at Yale’s Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center. Yale hosted the top 32 singles players and 16 doubles teams in the nation — among them, Yalies John Huang ’13 and Marc Powers ’13 »

RUNNING GAMES NEEDS TO IMPROVE The Yale running game has not been effective over the last three weeks, averaging 1.9 yards per carry (206 yards on 109 attempts). Meanwhile, the Elis’ three opponents — Lehigh, Penn and Columbia — have rushed for 549 yards on 119 carries, an average of 4.6 yards per rush. Against »

SCORE FIRST, SCORE FAST Yale should try to prevent Columbia from scoring in the first quarter. The Lions have not scored in the second half in three out of their last four losses, which suggests they are not a great comeback team. Meanwhile, the Bulldogs cannot afford to start slowly like they have in previous »

DEFENSE WINS GAME Saturday’s game will feature a showdown between the top two defenses in the Ivy League. Penn ranks second in the Football Championship Subdivision in total defense and tops the Ivy League in total defense, rushing defense, pass defense, sacks and tackles for loss. Similarly, in the FCS, Yale is second only to »

Aggressive coaching The Bulldogs’ impressive victory last Saturday against Dartmouth can be attributed to Yale’s aggressive play-calling throughout the game. Bulldog kicker/punter Tom Mante ’10 surprised with an onside kick that was easily recovered by the Elis, giving them the ball back in the closing minutes of the first half. Similarly, the Big Green, expecting »

Impact of the quarterback. The Bulldogs and the Big Green rely heavily on their passing games. In last Saturday’s loss to Lafayette, Yale passed for 214 of its 272 total offensive yards; similarly, Dartmouth ended the game with 204 passing yards out of 275 total yards in its loss to Penn last week. Since neither »

Convert in the Red Zone Lafayette is a difficult team to score on: The Leopards rank eighth in the nation in scoring defense and have a strong, balanced defensive structure. They are well-coached — Frank Tavani has led the team to three Patriot League titles in the past five years — and are especially effective »

1. Stop the Big Plays The Big Red is perennially a mid-to-lower-tier Ivy League team that has trouble beating the Bulldogs at the Yale Bowl; the last time Cornell won at Yale was in 1996. Nevertheless, the Big Red should be considered dangerous given their convincing win last week over Bucknell, 33-9. The Big Red’s »