Archive For The “Andy Coen” Category
Holy Cross’ and Lehigh’s paths to having fun playing football have been different, but two teams that appear to have reclaimed the fun to some degree will be facing off this weekend at Murray Goodman Stadium in an intriguing, important football game.
The 4-6 Crusaders have only one path to a Patriot League co-championship: beat 3-6 Lehigh this weekend, and hope 3-6 Lafayette and 5-4 Colgate lose at least one game the rest of the way.
But in Holy Cross’ regular-season finale, it doesn’t really feel like it’s about the postseason – which would only happen in the unlikely event of Lehigh and Holy Cross finishing at 4-2, and Lafayette and Colgate finishing at 3-3 in league play.
For Lehigh, though, the Patriot League Championship and the opportunity to play in the FCS Playoffs is still very much in play. Beat Holy Cross, and beat Lafayette in the 153rd meeting of The Rivalry, and this Mountain Hawk team will have a ring fitting in their future and a football practice on Thanksgiving.
And in a way, that’s what makes this game extra-dangerous for these Mountain Hawks. The Crusaders are nearing the likely finale of their roller-coaster ride. Lehigh’s 2017 coaster ride still has some very big twists and turns still in it.
Read more »
Holy Cross’ and Lehigh’s paths to having fun playing football have been different, but two teams that appear to have reclaimed the fun to some degree will be facing off this weekend at Murray Goodman Stadium in an intriguing, important football game.
The 4-6 Crusaders have only one path to a Patriot League co-championship: beat 3-6 Lehigh this weekend, and hope 3-6 Lafayette and 5-4 Colgate lose at least one game the rest of the way.
But in Holy Cross’ regular-season finale, it doesn’t really feel like it’s about the postseason – which would only happen in the unlikely event of Lehigh and Holy Cross finishing at 4-2, and Lafayette and Colgate finishing at 3-3 in league play.
For Lehigh, though, the Patriot League Championship and the opportunity to play in the FCS Playoffs is still very much in play. Beat Holy Cross, and beat Lafayette in the 153rd meeting of The Rivalry, and this Mountain Hawk team will have a ring fitting in their future and a football practice on Thanksgiving.
And in a way, that’s what makes this game extra-dangerous for these Mountain Hawks. The Crusaders are nearing the likely finale of their roller-coaster ride. Lehigh’s 2017 coaster ride still has some very big twists and turns still in it.
Read more »
In Must-Win Game, Lehigh Defense Forces Four Turnovers And Lehigh Offense Makes Bison Pay, Win 42-21
(Photo Credits: Mike Geer/Lehigh Athletics)
“We went right at ’em.”
That was head coach Andy Coen talking to Lehigh Sports’ Steve Lomangino after the Mountain Hawks’ 42-21 win over Bucknell.
With their Patriot League title hopes on the line, and the No. 1 defense in the Patriot League the opposition, it seemed like the Mountain Hawks might enter into the type of defensive struggle that defined last year’s game against Bucknell.
But after junior LB Mark Walker forced and and grabbed a Bison fumble and returned it to the Bucknell 9 yard line, junior QB Brad Mayes didn’t mess around.
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Not headed to Lewisburg this morning to catch the Lehigh/Bucknell game?
OK. I do sort-of understand. It’s a noon start, and it’s pretty far away. You’re still somewhat in a Halloween-candy coma, and heck, is today fall back, turn-the-clock-back an hour, or is that on Sunday?
So you can’t head out. So how do you catch the game?
Never fear. LFN’s here.
I got to Jack Coffey Field late.
I knew it was going to be close, getting to the Bronx for the 1:00 PM start. My son was marching in the band for the parade that morning, and nothing was going to keep me from going to that event, completed under a perfect sky and perfect weather shining upon Main Street.
Earlier in the week I made a calculation on whether I could make it to kickoff by leaving as soon as his marching gig was complete. If I left, right as it ended, and didn’t make any stops, and the traffic was just right, it was doable.
So I decided it was a go. I’d be headed to the Bronx on a gorgeous Saturday that felt a lot more like September than November.
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(Photo Credit: Lehigh Athletics)
The ambulance came onto the field for the third time during a Lehigh football game.
On this occasion, it was that senior TE Drew Paulsen was trying to recover an onsides kick for the Mountain Hawks. Down only a field goal, head coach Andy Coen was trying to get the ball back to take advantage of momentum.
But something happened.
On the tackle, he had a head or neck injury, necessitating for the third time this year that an ambulance had to come on to the field for a Lehigh game.
The extremely-loved senior out of Tampa, Florida was carted out on a gurney, and headed to local Presybterian hospital for observation. On the TV broadcast, they showed tears from some of the players on the sidelines.
Lehigh lost to Fordham, 45-35, in an extremely frustrating game where the Mountain Hawks turned over the ball four times, twice in the red zone, and twice setting up Fordham in their red zone. But the injury to Paulsen, and the right leg injury that came up earlier to senior DT Jimmy Mitchell, was the focus after the game. The worries were clearly centered around the two seniors’ well-being.
“It’s unbelievable,” Coen said, Paulsen’s injury clearly very much on his mind. “I’ve been doing this for thirty-something years, and I’ve had three of these in one season.”
Lehigh at Fordham Media Pack (w/ Video): Mountain Hawks Try To Maintain League Momentum in the Bronx
One aspect of the Lehigh game at Fordham that doesn’t get a lot of attention is that
the last time the Mountain Hawks went to the Bronx and came away with a win was in 2011.
Even before RB Chase Edmonds then broke a Patriot League single-game rushing record against Lehigh in their 59-42 win in 2015 – a record he later broke against Lafayette – Lehigh lost a 52-34 shootout in the Bronx in 2013 as well. In the last two games in the Bronx against Fordham, Lehigh has allowed a 50-burger, as they say, two straight games.
“Fordham racked up 630 yards of offense on the Mountain Hawk defense and cracked 50 points on Lehigh’s D, the first time that happened since 2007,” I wrote about that 2013 game. “It wasn’t only Fordham’s third-ever win against the Mountain Hawks – it was also Lehigh’s first regular season road loss since 2010, when Lehigh traveled to New Hampshire and lost 31-10.”
That was only marginally as painful as the 2015 game, which also happened to be the debut of junior QB Brad Mayes after QB Nick Shafnisky came out of the game after a late hit during a 2 point conversion.
Mayes very nearly rallied the Mountain Hawks to make it a one-score game, but a missed FG try ended the dream, cemented be a 75 yard touchdown run by – who else? – Chase Edmonds.
The 2017 Lehigh Mountain Hawks are known for having a great offense, a high-octane group that features stars like junior QB Brad Mayes and junior RB Dominick Bragalone.
But senior WR Troy Pelletier would trade it all for conference wins.
On an afternoon where he broke a bunch of school and Patriot League records – some of them unanticipated – his focus, as ever, was about getting the league victories that count towards the main goal of this team – to defend their Patriot League Championship.
“I didn’t know what the records are,” Troy said afterwards about his record-busting, 16 catch, 197 receiving yard, 4 touchdown performance. “I just knew I was close. I knew it was going to come if I bought in every day, do what I need to do every day to get better, and I knew it would come.”
Fortunately for Lehigh fans, his banner day came to allow Lehigh to resoundingly beat Georgetown 54-35 and go to 2-0 in Patriot League play.
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As a guy who is pretty passionate about his Lehigh football history, it was great to see a national champion on the set of Lehigh Sports Central this week.
QB Mike Rieker, quarterback of the 1977 Division II National Champions, showed up to talk to Steve Degler about his role on that team and share some stories (and some video highlights) about that magical season.
One thing he didn’t do is talk about funny locker room stories about head coach John Whitehead.
“It was strictly business with coach Whitehead,” he said. “There was no footing around in the locker room until you left. He was all business, and it reflected on us, a lot of guys took to heart they didn’t want to make mistakes, because you’d have to face him. He was a tough taskmaster and a great teacher, and he ended up being a really good friend.
(Photo Credit: Morning Call)
“When’s enough, enough?”
Sometimes the game narratives can fall into something that seems like a cliche – the old halftime pep talk about “winning one for the Gipper”, or something like that. But this one feels different.
Head coach Andy Coen talked about it, and junior QB Brad Mayes talked about it – about Brad taking control of the locker room at halftime with a team full of long faces.
Going into that locker room, Brad had just before rallied on a broken play to fire a perfect pass to junior RB Dominick Bragalone to cut the two-touchdown deficit to one, and after a special teams touchdown for Colgate was called back on a penalty, the defense stopped Colgate cold to end the half.
But despite the momentum, gloom was still in the locker room.
“As a quarterback, you have to be a vocal leader,” Brad told Keith Groller of The Morning Call this week. “I’ve done it in the past when I was younger and in high school, and even when I played the past couple of years here, but I hadn’t done it until this year. We were just down seven. I didn’t understand the long faces and I basically said ‘When’s enough, enough?’ I said you guys have to hate losing as much as I do. We just had to go out and put forth the effort. We’re still a good football team. We just had to execute and it would work out, and it did.”
The Mountain Hawks then did enough to win the football game, and are hoping that they’ve said enough to losing any more games this season. The first test to see if that comes to pass will come at home as Lehigh hosts Georgetown.
