Lehigh football remains winless in loss to Bucknell

Lehigh football suffered a 6-0 loss to Bucknell Saturday afternoon at Goodman Stadium. It was also Senior Day for Lehigh’s 11 seniors, but they struggled to come up with a win in their last game at home.

“It’s always tough without the result that you want, but I was really proud with the way our kids played today under extremely difficult circumstances,” said head coach Tom Gilmore.“ I thought they came out and played really hard (with a ) high effort. We made some mistakes that really cost us, but it wasn’t due to a lack of effort. “

All it took were two Bucknell field goals to capture the win today. Although Lehigh led with 167 passing yards, the Bison put up 92 rushing yards, while Lehigh only put up 23 rushing yards.

The Mountain Hawks still have yet to put up a touchdown this season.

In the opening drive, Lehigh drove down to the 27-yard line and looked to sophomore Dylan Van Dusen to put some points on the board, but Van Dusen couldn’t convert the field goal.

Both defenses had themselves a strong first quarter, not letting the offenses score anything. The Bison opened up the scoring on an Ethan Torres field goal with 4:50 to play in the first half. Torres’s field goal would be the only points scored in the first two quarters, with Bucknell taking a 3-0 lead at the half.

In the opening drive of the third quarter, the Bison picked up right where they left off. They drove down to the 24-yard line and got another Torres field goal to give them a 6-0 lead with 6:13 to play in the third quarter. That field goal to put them up six would be the last points scored in the game. The defense was both team’s strong suit today.

Gilmore said the defense was really impressive.

“The way the game is played now is if you’re just a little bit out of position on an RPO, you might be giving up a 15-yard play,” Gilmore said. “ We have some inexperienced guys that are close but not quite there yet. It’s really really great to see how hard they play and how physical they are, and how close we are to being even better.”

The Mountain Hawks had one last chance to tie things up with 1:14 to play after stopping Bucknell on 4th and inches. They went to a hurry-up offense since they had no timeouts, but they ran out of downs and turned it over.

Lehigh will look to bounce back against Lafayette on April 10 in Easton, Pennsylvania, in the 156th meeting between the two.

“It’s the longest Rivalry, so everyone is going to be excited to get back to work and play football,” said senior linebacker Pete Haffner. “Any opportunity to play football is enormous, so to have that opportunity to play in the Rivalry, this whole school will be excited about it we’re going to be excited about it.”