But this tandem was soon split up, as Petruccelli was taken out of action by a hard slide tackle that knocked him out of the first half action.
"We missed Armando in the first half," Kohler said. "We really gave up the midfield."
The offense, meanwhile, started to grind down after the first Cornell goal.
"We had a tough time building up our offense," Kohler said. "The forwards weren't working together. We weren't cohesive as a team."
Harvard's best chances came in the second half.
With 20 minutes remaining in the second half, Kohler took a beautifully-led feed from Wilmot straight to the goal, but his shot went high and wide.
About 10 minutes later, Kohler took a feed from Petruccelli, who returned to start the second half, down the left sideline, where he let fly a shot around his defender. The shot, which beat the goalie, slammed against the right post and bounded back out into the field.
Meanwhile, Harvard's defense began to jell, sparked by the ferocious play of Vrionis.
Vrionis, perhaps reminded of last year's game, began to play the role of enforcer, tossing Big Red players around like firewood and finally earned a yellow card. But it paid off, as Cornell's opportunities were fairly limited in the second half.
Harvard's lone goal came in the final minute of play, when the Harvard offense pushed the ball into the Cornell penalty box.
A series of Harvard shots had the goalie out of position, so a Cornell player fell on top of the ball, obstructing senior midfielder Jim Quagliaroli from the ball.
Harvard was awarded a penalty kick, and Quagliaroli easily converted. Scoring Cor--Bernard 1 (Megliola) 7:37. Cor--Kusseluk 13:02. Cor--Kusseluk (Megliola) 20:16 Har--Quagliaroli (penalty kick) 44:30. Saves: Har--Albers 1, Dupuis 4; Cor--Sharma 3.