“In all of our games this year, we’ve been very excited and we’ve played on a lot of adrenaline,” McKenna said. “But I think the reason we lost some of the earlier games in the season was an inability to channel that energy and maintain our focus even when we got down. Against Yale, the defense was able to control the game in the last 10 minutes, and our defensive players just remained vocal and refused to accept the possibility that we might lose the game.”
McKenna’s accomplishments were also not overlooked by his teammates.
“Jake was awesome,” Boylan said. “There was a stint in the second half where they were getting some shots past him, but as usual, he stepped up big when he had to.”
The dramatic finish was a nice reversal of fortune for the Harvard players, as earlier in the Ivy schedule they lost late-game heartbreakers to both Penn and Cornell, despite holding a fourth quarter lead against the Big Red and dominating play for much of the fourth quarter against the Quakers
—Staff writer Robert C. Boutwell can be reached at boutwel@fas.harvard.edu.