An old sports adage states that one plays to the level of one's opponent. Witness actor Vincent Van Patten beating John McEnroe in a tennis match. Witness the Harvard men's soccer team falling to a 0-0 draw with UPenn Saturday in its final home game this season.

For the opening 20 minutes of the match, the booters ran the Quakers into the Business School turf. Halfbacks John Lyons and Leo Lanzillo owned the center of the field, allowing the front line of Lance Ayrault, Richard Berkman and Mauro Keller-Sarmiento to continually pressure the Penn net. But none of the Crimson pepper touched the Quaker twines.

At 23:00, Penn (7-5-2, 2-2-2 in Ivy play) wasted the two best opportunities of the first half when right fullback Deniz Perese cleared a skimming shot from a goalmouth crowd off the Crimson goal line toward the left wing, and Penn midfielder Kevin Kenney missed a score on the ensuing cross, spinning the ball past the left post.

Degenerate

The booters continued to visibly dominate the play, beating the Quakers to loose balls and winning headers in the air, but their offense slowly degenerated from controlled buildups to the long-ball passing style that stymied scoring earlier in the season.

The Penn defenders effectively employed an offsides trap to deny the Crimson through balls from their own half. When Ayrault was able to beat the trap, he was forced to protect the ball in the Quaker end and wait for support.

Who's on First?

Adding to the disorganization in the booters' attack were frequent substitutions and position changes on the field in the second half. In one 20-minute stretch, Keller-Sarmiento subbed back into the game, then played center halfback, left halfback, and left wing.

Defensively, the Crimson routinely broke up Penn's feeble offense. Captain John Duggan anchored the center of the backline and combined with goalkeeper Peter Walsh to hold the Quakers scoreless through 110 minutes. Peter Sergienko added punch to the offense by making threatening runs from his sweeper spot.

The Crimson came alive in the final ten minutes of regulation play, beating the Quakers on the difference in talent. With less than a minute left, Berkman worked a nifty give-and-go with Lanzillo at the edge of the Penn penalty box, giving himself a solo run at netminder Michael Moore.

In the next few seconds, Moore blocked the junior forward's first point blank blast, his try at the rebound, and then muffled a shot by Ayrault on the second deflection, forcing the booters into their fourth overtime this season.

The Crimson got the best chance to win the match in the second ten-minute period. Substitute forward Joaquim Correia beat the Quaker defenders to a through ball, but hit a right footer into Moore's arm.

The draw leaves the booters at 5-6-3 this year, 1-3-1 in the Ivies. They travel to New Haven Saturday to face Yale, winless in its last six matches, in the season finale.

THE NOTEBOOK: Although the Crimson dominated play Saturday, the game stats tell the whole story: Shots--Harvard 18, Penn 17; Corner Kicks--2, 3; Saves--11, 10... It seems the Quakers found the answer to the booters' Keller-Sarmiento connection of Maura, Andreas and Pablo with brothers J.B. and Ed Delany in their fullback line... Columbia clinched the Ivy League soccer title this weekend, downing Cornell, 1-0, in Ithaca on an unassisted goal by Kazbek Tambi. The Lions are now assured a spot in the opening round of the NCAA playoffs later this month. The win lifted Columbia's record to 10-0-4, 6-0 in the Ivies, and it remains the only major undefeated team in the nation... Game time for next weekend's season finisher at Yale is 10 a.m.... One of the referees commented at halftime. "I thought Harvard would be up five nothing by now."