Harvard

Radio: WFIL-AM (560). Records: Harvard, 6-2 overall, 4-1 Ivy League; Penn, 7-1, 5-0. Coaches: Harvard, Tim Murphy (110-57 at Harvard); Penn, Al Bagnoli (19th season, 129-57). Series: Harvard leads, 45-33-2. Harvard outlook: The Crimson rank second in the Ivy in rushing offense and rushing defense, behind Penn. Harvard has the top offensive unit with 409.4 yards per game and the highest scoring offense at 28.9 points per game. The Crimson have only two loses, one a league setback to Brown in Week 2. Since then, Harvard has won four Ivy games by a minimum of two touchdowns.

St. Joseph's Prep and La Salle may be the strictest of rivals, but that doesn't always extend beyond high school. John Gazzola found this out firsthand. The Prep offensive lineman committed to Harvard last weekend, and it was with the help of a La Salle grad that Gazzola was able to claim acceptance to one of the most prestigious universities in the country. John Butler, an assistant with the Crimson and a La Salle product, helped recruit the 6-foot-5, 260-pound Gazzola.

  After advancing to the Ivy League championship series for the first time since 2007, Penn (33-17) dropped a softball doubleheader, 1-0 and 5-2, to Harvard (33-13), falling to the defending champion Crimson in Cambridge, Mass., on Friday. In the opener, Quakers righthander Alexis Borden scattered three hits over six innings, but gave up a run in the bottom of the sixth when Harvard's Ashley Heritage walked, stole second, advanced to third on a single by Kasey Lange , then scored on a throwing error by Penn second sacker Samantha Erosa . Borden also started the second game and went seven inings, but gave up 5 runs on 12 hits.

Harvard's superior sprint on the deep homestretch left Navy one boat-length behind at the finish and Penn 1 1/2 lengths back as the Crimson oarsmen retained the Adams Cup in a tight race among some of this country's foremost college varsity eights yesterday on the Schuylkill. The Midshipmen from Annapolis jumped away to a lead of one-quarter of a length at 100 meters into the race, with Penn leading Harvard by two seats. Navy clung to its lead passing under the Strawberry Mansion Bridge but Harvard moved ahead of Penn by a half length.

Harvard reached the final round of the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference Invitational tennis championship by defeating Penn, 6-1, yesterday at Princeton University's Jadwin Gym. Princeton earned a title meeting with Harvard today by defeating Dartmouth, 6-1. In other matches, Providence edged Temple, 4-3; Cornell defeated Army, 4-3; Penn State beat Columbia, 4-3; Brown topped Yale, 6-1; St. John's defeated Colgate, 6-1; and George Washington beat...

BOSTON - When Penn and Harvard last met, they played one of the great games in recent Ivy League history, an 83-82 double-overtime Crimson win at the Palestra. Friday night, with the game on Harvard's floor, the Crimson made sure there was no such drama. With its first Ivy League title in sight, Harvard made more than 60 percent of its field-goal attempts and cruised to a 79-64 win at a jam-packed Lavietes Pavilion. "We didn't do a good job of getting out to shooters," Penn guard Zack Rosen said.

Sixth seed Mike Zimmerman, a Harvard senior, won the singles title in the Eastern Regional Intercollegiate Tennis Championships yesterday by rallying to defeat top seed Mark Booras of West Virginia, 5-7, 6-3, 6-4, at Princeton University's Jadwin Gym. Zimmerman was overpowered by Booras' serves in the first set but handled them better in the second and third. "My tactic of attacking his serve seemed to rattle him in the second set," Zimmerman said. The finalists will compete in the National Indoor Intercollegiate Championships, to be held Feb. 6-9 in Minneapolis.

For Chris Lorditch, there wasn't one defining moment when the game plan was altered and the best football college offer was supplanted by best football/academic offer. But the Archbishop Wood senior does recall the lightbulb-over-head moment that led to his committing to Harvard this last weekend. "People have this tendency to look down on Ivy League football," said Lorditch, a member of The Inquirer's all-Southeastern Pennsylvania first team, "but it's not like that at all. " Lorditch, a 6-foot-3, 180-pound wide receiver, had an offer from Syracuse - his runner-up - but somewhere along the recruiting road, Harvard became the choice.

Ryan Wittman scored 27 points and Louis Dale added 18 to help Cornell stay on top of the Ivy League in a 79-70 win over Harvard last night in Cambridge, Mass. Wittman continued his march up the list of all-time Ivy League scorers when his three-pointer with 7 minutes, 54 seconds left in the second half gave him 24 points, pushing him past Joe Carrabino of Harvard (17-6, 6-3) into sixth place. Cornell (22-4, 8-1) remained a half-game ahead of Princeton (7-1) for first place in the Ivy League.

Seven-year-old Monique Soden scanned the crowded infield yesterday, looking for Meredith Rainey among the hundreds of competitors at the 1990 Outdoor Heptagonal Championships. "Where's Merry?" she asked Walter Lawrence, Rainey's grandfather. "Well, she's either resting or getting a blood transfusion," he said. In reality, Rainey, the Harvard senior who is the defending NCAA 800-meters champion, was seeking some shade and a moment's respite between her third and fourth events.

  After advancing to the Ivy League championship series for the first time since 2007, Penn (33-17) dropped a softball doubleheader, 1-0 and 5-2, to Harvard (33-13), falling to the defending champion Crimson in Cambridge, Mass., on Friday. In the opener, Quakers righthander Alexis Borden scattered three hits over six innings, but gave up a run in the bottom of the sixth when Harvard's Ashley Heritage walked, stole second, advanced to third on a single by Kasey Lange , then scored on a throwing error by Penn second sacker Samantha Erosa . Borden also started the second game and went seven inings, but gave up 5 runs on 12 hits.

To hear South Philadelphia native Siuman Yau tell it, he was way ahead of the Jeremy Lin hysteria. "I was," said the 24-year-old son of Chinese immigrants as he waited for friends outside the Wells Fargo Center before Lin and the New York Knicks played the 76ers. "I heard about him when he was at Harvard. I YouTubed him a couple of times, checked out his highlights. " Living in New Jersey now, Yau was one of waves of Asian American and Asian fans who helped to pack the arena as Lin, the Taiwanese American rookie free agent who was the talk of the league recently, made his first appearance of the season here.

Senior guard Shey Peddy scored 24 points as the Temple women's basketball team held off Harvard, 64-59, on Saturday in the second round of the WNIT at the Liacouras Center. The Owls (23-9) will play the winner of Monday's Syracuse-Drexel game in the third round, which will take place between March 21 and 23 at a site to be determined. Temple and Harvard (18-12) were tied with under five minutes remaining before the Owls pulled away. Senior guard BJ Williams broke a 56-all tie on a layup with 2 minutes, 42 seconds remaining, and another layup by Williams two minutes later gave Temple a 60-57 lead.

Robert Sacre and Gary Bell Jr. scored 14 points apiece as Gonzaga routed West Virginia, 77-54, on Thursday night in Pittburgh in the second round of the NCAA tournament. Kevin Pangos added 13 points and five assists for the seventh-seeded Bulldogs (26-6). Gary Browne led the Mountaineers (19-14) with 15 points off the bench, and Kevin Jones scored 13 in his final game for West Virginia, which had its worst postseason defeat in 28 years despite the home-court advantage. Gonzaga never let the crowd get into it. The Bulldogs took control during a 13-0 run midway through the first half and cruised, shooting 56 percent from the floor.

PRINCETON, N.J. - At least last night mattered. When it comes to the Ivy League, really, that is the point. Perhaps that will be this heroic team's legacy. Last night, the loss was too bitter for the Quakers to see it for themselves. After four seasons of excruciating insignificance, Penn was back where it belonged: At Jadwin Gymnasium, in a meaningful Tuesday night season finale, with a chance to beat Princeton, and, by doing so, win a 26th Ivy League title, sharing it with Harvard.

PRINCETON - Zack Rosen stared at the stat sheet, shaking his head. His head kept right on shaking as his eye found more and more numbers. Penn's sensational point guard finally flicked the paper away with a finger like a poker player folding his cards. His coach saw Rosen drop his head into a hand. "Zack, pick your head up," Jerome Allen told him at the postgame news conference For Rosen, there was no nothing but angst to take away from Jadwin Gym Tuesday night. Playing for a share of the Ivy League title and a playoff date with Harvard, the Quakers couldn't keep Princeton from the rim and couldn't find the inside of it themselves.

ZACK ROSEN is Penn's all-time leader in assists (575) and minutes (4,080). He is third in scoring (1,677 points). He is the only player in school history to have more than 100 assists in each of his four seasons. Some day, the senior point guard may look at those numbers and smile. It is, however, what Rosen does not have that is most important to him. Neither he nor his senior teammates, Tyler Bernardini, Rob Belcore and Mike Howlett, has an Ivy League title. They can rectify that by winning tonight at Princeton.

ITHACA, N.Y. - Oliver McNally made four free throws in the final 20 seconds as Harvard held off Cornell, 67-63, in Ithaca, N.Y., on Saturday night to clinch at least a share of its second straight Ivy League title. The Crimson (26-4, 12-2), who have concluded their regular season, need a Penn loss Tuesday at Princeton to clinch the crown outright and earn an NCAA berth for the first time since their only appearance in 1946. After the Big Red (12-16, 7-7) took their first lead at 30-29, Brandyn Curry hit four straight three-pointers to give the Crimson a 41-34 advantage with 14:04 left.

Harvard got 19 points from Kyle Casey to beat host Columbia, 77-70, in overtime Friday night and remain atop the Ivy League and move closer to its first NCAA tournament appearance. Harvard (25-4, 11-2) leads Penn, which defeated Brown by 54-43, by a half-game in the Ivy race. Harvard led, 34-30, at halftime, but Columbia (14-15, 3-10) tied it at 62-all on two late layups by Mark Cisco (12 points). In overtime, Casey quickly hit a jumper, fed Laurent Rivard for a three-pointer and hit a trey of himself for a 70-64 lead.

Penn is a step closer to a potential one-game playoff for the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. With Zack Rosen scoring 11 of his game-high 19 points in the second half, Penn pulled away from Brown late for a 54-43 victory before 2,834 at the Palestra. Thanks to Princeton's 64-57 home victory over Yale and Harvard's 77-70 overtime defeat of Columbia in New York, Penn (18-11, 10-2 Ivy League) and Harvard are the only two teams left in contention for the Ivy championship.