“In the second half, straight away, I think we noticed that we could pressure higher up the field,” Junot said. “Throughout the second half, we did just that and took away their space to play dangerous soccer.”
As the game went on, the Crimson began creating more chances, with sophomore forward Connor McCarthy delivering several crosses into the box.
In the 82nd minute, freshman forward Hiroki Kobayashi took control of the ball outside the box, slipped and recovered, and cut inside his defender before sending a low curling effort into the bottom right corner to give Harvard the lead.
But the Crimson was almost pegged back immediately when Les Grenadiers defender Millean Jean Alex’s 30-yard free kick glanced the crossbar.
But that was Haiti’s last attack, as the Crimson was able to hold on for the slim 1-0 victory.
CAPE VERDE ALL-STARS 1, HARVARD 1 (7-6 PENALTY KICKS)
In front of 1176 fans, most of them sporting blue and red scarves, Harvard began its international weekend by taking on the Cape Verde All-Stars under the lights Friday night.
And though both teams found the back of the net in the first half, neither team had a goal to show on the scoreboard for their efforts going into halftime.
A sweeping offensive move by Cape Verde led to a cross by Benvindo Barros, which was deflected five yards in front of goal. Danny Xavier found himself in the right spot and pulled off an acrobatic bicycle kick that beat Conrad but not the offside flag.
Seven minutes later, forward Zack Wolfenzon thought he had eluded the offside trap before slotting home, but the junior was also ruled offside.
But both Xavier and Wolfenzon would have something to show for their efforts before the end of the day.
Xavier put Cape Verde ahead five minutes into the second half, finishing a rebound from Zico Veiga’s volley off of a corner kick.
The Crimson struggled to find an answer for most of the remaining time, but the offensive urgency picked up in the final fifteen minutes.
And after several shot attempts went wide, Wolfenzon got on the end of a deflected header from freshman Tim Schmoll to even the score at one and send the game to penalty kicks.
Harvard was up 4-3 with a chance to win, but was unable to put the game away, and Cape Verde stayed perfect in sudden death to take the matchup, 7-6.
But for Junot, positive messages could be taken from the tight loss.
“My message to our group is to [find] the urgency to attack like [the final fifteen minutes],” Junot said. “I saw our fullbacks overlapping and our forwards willing to run at defenders and create opportunities.”
—Staff writer Peter G. Cornick can be reached at pcornick@college.harvard.edu.