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PROVIDENCE, R.I.--Sear Carew scored three touchdowns as the Harvard freshman football team took advantage of seven Brown turnovers to post a 35-16 victory here Friday.
Although the Bruin defense played a pretty good game, the Brown offense and special teams gave Harvard so many opportunities that "pretty good" wasn't good enough.
The hosts Brown fumbled four times, surrendered two interceptions and had a punt blocked. All five Harvard touchdown drives started with Bruin turnovers.
"They gave us a lot," Crimson Coach Jim Kubacki said, "and we took it. They handed the game to us early and from then on it was just a matter of trying to make sure we played everybody."
Harvard was actually the first to give the ball away, throwing an interception on its opening possession. But the Crimson got the ball right back on the next play when Brown fumbled the center exchange.
Taking over on the Crimson 31, quarterback Rod MacLeod directed the offense to its first touchdown, converting a crucial fourth down along the way. Halfback Sean Carew gathered in MacLeod's 24-yd. pass for the touchdown.
At the end of the first quarter, Brown recorded its first three first downs of the game and moved down to the Harvard 31--as far as it would get all half. But safety Tony Molinari intercepted a tipped pass on the next play to end the Bruin threat.
Helped by a personal foul penalty on the Brown defense, the Crimson took the ball 63 yards in seven plays for a touchdown. Halfback John Yoon slithered the final five yards into the endzone to make the score, 14-0.
The Harvard offense could have started hom to Cambridge at that point. Thanks to Bruin miscues, it was no longer needed.
Crimson linebacker Brian Burns picked off Brown's next pass, returning it to the hosts' 23. Three plays later, Carew scored his second touchdown of the day on a two-yard struggle up the middle, boosting the Crimson lead to 21-0.
Harvard punter Alan Hall buried the Bruins at their own four, and Brown promptly fumbled.
Once again, Carew took the ball in for six points, this time on a three-yd. run.
The special teams notched the Crimson's final tally in the third quarter. Paul Helmering scooped up a blocked Brown punt and ran the ball in from 25 yards out for the touchdown.
The Bruins offense scored two late touchdowns and a two-point conversion, and the defense added a safety, to make the final 35-16.
Brown coach Mike Goldberger wasn't surprised by his squad's poor performance.
"Our freshmen are part of the varsity program--they scrimmage with the varsity," Goldberger said. "They don't work together as a team during the week. If you look at the number of sophomores who are playing on the varsity, it's a good system, but if you look at the freshman record [Brown is winless], it's a bad system.
Coach Kubacki tagged the game as "not very exciting." He looked to the coming weeks to provide Harvard with its best competition.
"We have Holy Cross next week," the former Crimson quarterback said. "We haven't beaten them since I've been here. And then there's Yale.
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