Box Score

Box Score I Photo Gallery by Heather Nichols '80 I Postgame Press Conference With Head Coach Jim Knowles '87

NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- In a game of play and punt, it was the first Cornell offensive snap that made all the difference. The Big Red defense made sure of it.

Cornell improved to 2-0 for the second straight year, spoiling the home debut of Yale coach Tom Williams with an exciting 14-12 victory over the Bulldogs on Saturday afternoon at the Yale Bowl.



Bryan Walters took an 81-yard pass from Stephen Liuzza to the house on the first offensive play of the game for the Big Red and the defense limited Yale to 296 total yards, including breaking up a potential game-tying two-point conversion with no time left to earn the victory. In between, junior safety Anthony Ambrosi returned an interception 20 yards for a score, the first pick six for a Cornell player since Frank Morand returned an interception 71 yards in a win over Colgate in 2007.

Junior Drew Alston also starred, breaking a Cornell record with 15 punts in a single game. He averaged 34.7 yards despite repeatedly kicking into the wind, helping the Big Red maintain field advantage in a game decided by it. Senior Bryan Walters piled up 176 all-po\urpose yards, including 73 on punt returns to move within 31 yards of the Ivy League record.

The Cornell defense got a career-high nine tackles and a pass breakup from Rashad Campbell, while Emani Fenton made four stops and broke up four passes in the victory. Besides Ambrosi's interception, he added two tackles for loss and three pass breakups. Senior linebacker Chris Costello notched seven tackles and a sack.

After kicking the ball to Yale to open the game, the Big Red defense forced a three-and-out. The Big Red decided to go for broke on the first play, as Ganter found Liuzza just behind the line of scrimmage, and the senior hit Walters all alone behind the defense about 30 yards downfield. His classmate did the rest, going a total of 81 yards for the touchdown, the fifth-longest pass play in Cornell history. Greeenway's kick made it 7-0 just 1:34 into the game.

The teams traded empty possessions with punts, and Yale took over near midfield with nine minutes left in the quarter. The Cornell defense again stiffened and forced a punt, Yale's third in the first seven and a half minutes. Cornell's first offensive turnover of the season, an interception by Ganter at the Cornell 19, gave the Bulldogs a short field. Yale marched down to the 7, but eventually settled for a 23-yard Tom Mante field goal to cut the deficit to 7-3 with 4:30 left in the first. Cornell ended the first quarter with just 77 total yards, but defensively held Yale to 59 yards on its 25 plays.

The Bulldogs missed a 42-yard field goal midway through the second, but Mante's 54-yarder at the gun made it 7-6 at the break and sent Yale into the locker with momentum. Ambrosi ended that momentum, putting the visitors up 14-6 after stepping in front of a Patrick Witt pass in the flat and returning it all the way to paydirt for the score.

An INT by hometown hero Ricky Ballou was nullified by a penalty on the first play of the fourth quarter, and the Bulldogs used that 15-yard penalty to march all the way down to the third, but Witt was again intercepted, this time by Dempsey Quinn in the end zone. A string of five straight punts was broken when Witt found another Cornell defender, Ben Heller, to give the ball back to the Big Red with 1:58 left.

The Bulldogs judiciously used their timeouts to force Alston's 15th punt of the night, a line drive that got caught in the wind and landed at the Cornell 47. Three first downs later, Yale was inside the 10. A seven-yard pass to John Sheffield from Witt fell a foot short of the end zone, but he was able to launch himself into the end zone as the clock showed no time remaining with a partisan Yale crowd cheering. Witt's two-point conversion attempt to tie the contest fell incomplete and the Big Red celebrated its first Ivy League road victory since knocking off Penn 16-7 in the 2005 season finale, snapping a 10-game losing streak against Ancient Eight foes on the road. The victory improved Cornell's record to 9-2 in games decided by three points or less in Jim Knowles' tenure.

The Big Red remain on the road for one more weekend when it visits Colgate on Saturday, Oct. 3 at 1 p.m. at Andy Kerr Stadium in Hamilton, N.Y. Cornell leads the all-time series 48-40-3, though Colgate snapped a two-game losing streak in the series last year with a 38-22 win in Ithaca.