The Harvard junior varsity soccer team avoided what would have been their sixth defeat in six games last night by tying Boston College, 2-2.
In their first contest on Astroturf, the Crimson J.V. booters grappled initially with some difficulties, but eventually managed to settle down and to perform quite well.
The contest was as equal as the final tally indicates--the Boston College team had as much trouble organizing its offensive drives as the Crimson players did.
First Blood
The Crimson scored first, taking advantage of a wide open net. Shortly after this first goal the Crimson booters had another chance to tally when Doug Stone brought the ball down to the B.C. goal line and booted it in front of the undefended goal. However, Stone had not teammates down-field to make the score, and the opportunity was lost.
Boston College tallied late in the first half off of a corner shot. Then, with Fred Weiss and Alex de Cholnoky assisting, Chris Minkowski scored by deflecting the ball off the B.C. goalkeeper's hand.
The offensive drives of the Boston College players tested Harvard goalkeeper Ben Bryant time and time again, but he performed very efficiently to temporarily prevent B.C. from evening the score. But eventually the B.C. booters did manage to tally another point on a wide shot to the corner away from Bryant.
A lack of aggressiveness and overall coordination plagued Harvard as it has in earlier contests. Many times B.C. was allowed to advance the ball onto the Harvard turf without encountering any interference from the Crimson booters. When Harvard was able to penetrate B.C. territory, its offensive drives were so disjointed that the booters were unable to take advantage of gaps in the B.C. defense--gaps which occured very frequently.
The Harvard defense was steadier than the offense, as Terry Ferguson, Charlie Hirschler and Rob Finley consistently upset their opponents' hastily conceived and poorly executed scoring attempts.
Not losing was some consolation to the Crimson, but coach Seamus Malin would like at least one victory this season.
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Booters Battle Penn to Scoreless Tie