The biggest men's lacrosse game here in two years may have passed away Saturday without one gasp of enthusiasm from the beleagured hosts. Princeton beat Harvard. 10-6, dashing hopes for a Crimson Ivy League title with a sweltering defense and crashing the squad from a five-game winning streak into the reality of seasonal ups and downs.

Crimson expectations flew high before the contest. During Harvard's roll, its weaknesses had been camouflaged and the team was playing well. It had displayed a certain indisposition--in wins over Brown and Delaware--to put teams away once it had printed them down. But this inability could be explained by the abundance of youth on the roster and remedied with experience.

Demographics

Now, in the heart of the season, Princeton came to town, so the squad primed for a first-rate struggled against a quality opponent. The Tigers rank among the top 15 teams in the country.

Alas, it was not to be

Two minutes into the game. Princeton senior Rip Wilson bounced a shot off a defender's foot and past Harvard goalie Tim Pendergast. A minute and a half later, teammate Gerry Bocon connected on the first corner of his hat trick from in close Four minutes after that, Steve Delligatti fired an implausible shot from 20 yards with Rob Sherlock directly fronting him, but he made the score to give Princeton a 3-0 lead, and boom, boom, boom. Harvard lost its wind, never to recover.

Princeton held the Crimson scoreless in the first quarter, giving up only two goals in the first half. Rarely does a team force more errors, respond more quickly to imbalances, and generally play better pressure man-to-man defense than the bruising Tiger backfield crowned by honorable mention All-America goalie Fran Smyth's performance.

"We've never seen anything like that," said Harvard Coach Bob Scalise of the Tiger defensive effort. "It's an intimidation factor and our fundamentals broke down I don't think they can do that every game because it's very draining, but they did it to us."

Harvard's leading scorer freshman Steve Bartenfelder, the marked man of Tiger scouting reports, managed only a single goal all game. Luckily, though, his size protected him from the physical punishment saddled on linemate Rob Hawley and even fireplug co-Captain Mike Davis--scoring threats who often found themselves skidding across the ground, courtesy of a defense that measured close to 6-ft. 3-in. 210 pounds across the line.

Right after halftime. Harvard mounted a charge on the Princeton lead. Taking advantage of man-up situations and the outside shots they afford--instead of forcing toward the goal and more abuse--the Crimson scored the first three goals of the third period, two on carbon copy screamers by midfielder Steve Voelkel only 22 seconds apart, Harvard cut a 7-2 intermission deficit to 7-5.

Sweet as it was, the spurt was short-lived. With five minutes left in the quarter. Princeton reasserted control, capping an impressive pass sequence at the Crimson goal mouth with an Alex Dwyer score to reassert Tiger control. From that point on, Crimson shots never found the goal. Harvard tallied only one goal in the final period-and-a-half.

Stats

Harvard picked up 66 ground balls to Princeton's 61. It fired 37 shots, only three less than the Tiger total. The most selling statistic is goalie Pendergast's 10 saves, which compares unfavorably to Smyth's 18; but the teams played even on paper.

"Princeton's a good team, but had we played well, we could have beaten them easily." Scalise said.

It was a game which Harvard could have won, but it didn't. That's what makes the loss so deflating. That and the fact that such an auspicious team, at least compared with last year's start-to-finish disappointment, has now effectively dropped out of the Ivy League race with a 3-2 record Cornell, Dartmouth and Princeton stand undefeated.

THE NOTEBOOK: Brendan Meagher scored his first goal of the season at 6:11 of the third period, placing the ball in the upper right hand corner of the net from 20 yards to cap his team's three-goal rally.