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Penn loses; Harvard clinches Ivy title

BOSTON - In 11 out of the last 15 seasons, either Penn or Harvard has finished the season with at least a share of the Ivy League football title.

BOSTON - In 11 out of the last 15 seasons, either Penn or Harvard has finished the season with at least a share of the Ivy League football title.

This year's campaign will be no different. But for the first time since 2008, the Quakers won't be able to raise a new flag over Franklin Field.

Scoring 37 straight points after Penn's opening touchdown, Harvard stormed to a 37-20 rout before 11,283 fans at Harvard Stadium.

Combined with Dartmouth's 21-16 upset win at Brown, the result gave the Crimson (8-1, 6-0 Ivy League) this season's Ivy League title outright.

"We knew we had to play perfect here, and we didn't," Quakers wide receiver Ryan Calvert said after the game.

Despite the relatively high final score, it took until the last minute of the first quarter for either offense to come alive. Penn (4-2, 5-4) scored first, as Quakers quarterback Billy Ragone fired a 21-yard strike over the middle to Calvert for a touchdown.

Harvard turned the game around early in the second quarter. Penn running back Jeff Jack had the ball stripped away at the Harvard 24-yard line, and on the next play Harvard quarterback Collier Winters threw a touchdown pass to Cameron Brate.

The Crimson took a 14-7 lead with a 14-yard run by Zach Boden with just over a minute left before halftime.

Harvard scored again with 11 seconds left in the half, as David Mothander kicked a 35-yard field goal after Penn punter Scott Lopano muffed a snap.

The Crimson dominated the second half. Winters and Treavor Scales scored rushing touchdowns, and Alexander Norman had a 34-yard interception return for a touchdown just seconds after Scales' score early in the fourth quarter.

Scales finished the day with 70 rushing yards, and Boden totaled 81. As a team, Harvard racked up 204 net rushing yards in the game - and perhaps more important, held Penn to just 24.

"The line of scrimmage was certainly won by their defensive kids," Penn coach Al Bagnoli said of his team's ground game. "We struggled more than we've struggled at any point this year to run the football."

Ragone finally broke Penn's scoring drought midway through the fourth quarter, with a touchdown run from the 1-yard line. He threw a 13-yard touchdown pass to Calvert with 3:56 left, but his two-point conversion pass fell incomplete.

While Harvard celebrated its coronation as Ivy League champions, Bagnoli declared himself relatively satisfied with Penn's season.

"This is a really young football team that has been somewhat erratic," Bagnoli said, noting that only 12 of the 62 players on his travel roster are seniors. "I think the foundation is there - I think they have handled the season really well. They came in with a tremendous amount of pressure on them."