Richmond breezes past Lehigh
A 28-point second quarter proved to be the difference as the Lehigh football team fell 31-3 to No. 22⁄25 Richmond Saturday at Robins Stadium. The Mountain Hawks led 3-0 after one quarter but Richmond capitalized on several short fields and Lehigh miscues to take control of the game. Lehigh’s defense held Richmond to just a third quarter field goal but the Mountain Hawks were held to three points offensively for the second consecutive week.
Richmond’s Aaron Dykes accounted for 107 all purpose yards and scored two touchdowns, while quarterback Joe Mancuso threw for 131 yards and a pair of second quarter touchdowns.
“We got a few things straightened out, but there’s a few things on each side of the ball that we need to improve quite a bit,” Lehigh head coach Tom Gilmore said. “We saw some improvement in some areas in that first half, but we broke down in the second quarter. We gave up a lot of big plays. We turned the ball over. We’re not consistently moving the ball and putting ourselves in a scoring position.”
Lehigh (0-2) was out-gained 390-224, but the Mountain Hawks only allowed 100 yards and three points after halftime. The Mountain Hawks rushed for 158 yards after being limited to -12 against Villanova last week.
Senior Alec Beesmer took over at quarterback late in the second quarter and led the Mountain Hawks with 65 rushing yards on 10 carries. He also completed 4-of-10 passes for 28 yards. Junior Cross Wilkinson started 4-for-4 but finished 6-for-12 for 38 yards. Both Lehigh quarterbacks threw one interception.
Freshman Gaige Garcia led Lehigh’s running backs with 43 yards on six carries. Junior Zaythan Hill added 41 on nine attempts and senior RaShawn Allen rushed seven times for 16 yards.
“I said at the very beginning of the season in the preseason that I think we have a really good backfield,” Gilmore said. “Our running backs are going to be great players and we’re very deep in that position. We have to block it up and we have to set up situations better in order to spring them, and I thought we did that in the second half.
“Richmond had to make some adjustments to some of the RPO things that we were doing,” he continued. “That opened up some running lanes, but we just couldn’t block it up. We were able to get some small gains, but they should have been bigger gains. We just need to finish those blocks, finish plays a little bit better when we’re opening that up with the RPO game. I think that, and just having an established run game is going to help us moving forward.”
The Mountain Hawks return to Goodman Stadium next Saturday to face the Princeton Tigers as part of Family Weekend, presented by PSECU. Game time is set for noon. Tickets can be purchased at LehighTickets.com or by calling 610-7LU-GAME during business hours.
Lafayette was playing William & Mary late Saturday afternoon. The game ended too late for this edition.