Despite low attendance at recent practices. a goalie who was playing with a painful injury. and a recent Ioss to Cornell. Harvard's lacrosse team breezed to a 12-6 win over UMass, yesterday on the Business School field.

It was the Redman's first loss since a 6-5 defeat given them by Amherst two years ago. Since then, they had won 17 consecutive collegiate games, But a look at their opponents indicates that going undefeated isn't as much an accomplishment as one might think.

Good Passing

It was obvious today that Harvard was a much better team. and only a bad Crimson effort would have made a UMass victory possible. Though the Harvard passing wasn't aways spectacular, it was quite good at times, and was in sharp contrast to that of the Redmen.

One improvement in Harvard's play was a lower number of penalties, Yesterday's referees were more lenient than most, but the Crimson did not pick up a lot of the unnecessary penalties as it has before Harvard committed only five penalties, as compared to 17 against Corneil.

The Game

Crimson captain Bruce Regan opened the scoring at 1:52, and the lead held until Henry Herschoff tied the game 12 minutes later.

Regan put his team ahead to stay early in the second period on an unassisted goal, and then. with the help of some inept UMass clearing attempts, Harvard scored four more times before the end of the half for a commanding 6-1 lead. Cle Landolt tallied three of the four, and Phil Zuckerman scored the other.

Failed to Mount

Meanwhile, UMass failed to mount an attack. Every time the Redmen got possession, the Crimson quickly got the ball back and went on offense.

At the same time. Don Gogel was sticking close to Tom Malone. UMass' firstteam Little All-American attackman. Malone led the nation in scoring last year with 84 points, and had collected 39 in four games this season. but he had to settle for one goal and an assist yesterday. Gogel's aggressive play led to two penalties, but it was worthwhile.

The Redmen rallied somewhat in the third period after Paul Bloom scored the first of his two goals to pad the Crimson lead to 7-1 Rich Ritch. Bob Sheridan, and Tony Marinacei each put the ball past Cosentino within a three-minute span.

UMass then had the momentum, but goals by Cabie Warren and John Ince raised Harvard's lead to five as the third period ended.

Once again, the Crimson averted a fourth-quarter letdown, a major problem last year, and though UMass occasionally controlled the ball for long periods of time. Harvard was able to score quickly whenever it regained possession.