QUICK RECAP: Behind Career Day by Tipton, Yale Overwhelms Lehigh 34-0

BETHLEHEM, PA – On a sunny 75 degree day, Yale’s offense racked up 420 yards on the Mountain Hawk defense as the Bulldogs (2-1, 1-0) pummeled Lehigh (0-5, 0-1) 34-0.

The Bulldogs opened up the scoring in the first five minutes of the game when QB Griffin O’Connor found WR David Pantelis with a pretty over-the-shoulder throw where only David could catch it. From there, the Bulldog defense smothered Lehigh’s offense the rest of the way, only allowing 146 total yards, 37 yards rushing and 109 yards passing.

Sophomore DT Clay Patterson for Yale had a banner day on defense, notching 4 sacks, including 2 on Lehigh’s final drive in the red zone to preserve the shutout. He also was the team leader on defense in solo tackles with 9. Overall, the Bulldogs sacked Lehigh QB Nigel Summerville eight times, including three times in succession after Lehigh made it to the red zone for the first time in the game.

“I thought we improved for the second week in a row after our first-week setback. We have a long way to go to being back to a championship-level team but we are better than we were a week ago,” said Yale head coach Tony Reno. “We talked a lot about stopping the run on the way to quarterback and our defensive line and linebackers did a great job of that all day and got consistent pressure to disrupt Lehigh.”

Yale busted the game wide open late in the first half when backup QB Nolan Grooms found Mason Tipton with an out pass, where he dodged the tackle and took the reception 57 yards for the touchdown that ultimately made it 21-0 Yale. The Akron, Ohio native had 3 catches for 122 yards and a TD, the 122 yards a career high.

RB Zane Dudek led the Bulldogs with 8 rushes for 56 yards and a touchdown. Dudek’s fourth carry in the game gave him 400 career rushes for 2,506 yards; good for a 6.3 yards per rush average. His mark now qualifies for the highest total in Yale history, passing Bulldog great Dick Jauron ’73 and his 5.7 average (515 carries, 2,947 yards. Dudek now has 2,544 yards which ranks seventh all-time at Yale and just 32 yards back of Rich Diana ’82 for sixth (2,576).

Yale travels to Hanover, New Hampshire next week for a critical Ivy League matchup vs. Dartmouth, while Lehigh will travel to Penn in search of their first win on the 2021 season.