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Coming off an electric 23-7 win against Providence, the Harvard men’s lacrosse team (2-0, 0-0 Ivy) continued its hot streak with a one-goal win against No. 18 Bryant (2-1), 14-13. In what senior attacker Brennan McBride called “a full team effort,” the squad battled for a full 60 minutes against its scrappy foe.
A quick win on the faceoff for junior FOGO Andrew DeGennaro set the fast-paced energy of the first quarter, in which the Crimson notched its first goal after less than thirty seconds of game action. Junior middie Miles Botkiss got the offense moving with a hard dodge down the left alley where he hit junior captain and attacker Sam King with a pass. In what would be a game-long theme, the defense was quick to slide to King, eager to minimize his offensive prowess. King curled up the right side of the wing with the ball, keeping his head up as the slide snuck up from the goal line. Senior attacker Graham Blake exploited the lane left by the Bryant defender and snuck underneath along the crease for an easy dish from King and a quick finish on the doorstep.
The squad jogged back to the fifty, where DeGennaro kept the momentum going with another easy clamp. In a similar fashion to its first goal, the attack struck quickly, this time on an easy dodge from the left-wing by sophomore middie Logan Ip. Ip took the ball confidently to the hoop, besting his defender with a shifty right-to-left roll dodge that left him with time and space to get downhill and slide underneath his defender for a slick right-handed finish.
DeGennaro continued with his impressive performance at the faceoff X, winning his third straight possession. However, the offense was unable to capitalize to go up by three. King, in his typical fashion, strung his defender up at the point, but he knocked into the goalie on his diving finish around the left side of the crease and was sidelined with a one-minute penalty.
The man down unit looked impressive throughout the night, locking down the Bryant offense and not allowing it to score on a single of its five man up opportunities. However, it at times looked a beat behind the attack and was slow to send the recovery slide on the backside, which allowed Bryant to exploit open lanes on the skip-pass. Senior goalie Christian Barnard held strong in net, coming in clutch with key saves.
“I think that’s kind of what you want to give up on the man down,” junior defender Martin Nelson said. “Obviously we can be quicker to rotate and do our best to kind of jump those quickly so they can’t get shots off, but at some point when you’re man down, you’ve got to give up something.”
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Barnard made a key stop during the Bulldog’s first man up set, and weathered a late hit that put the Crimson up a player for a minute. The extra-man unit looked strong in its first performance of the game, and freshman offensive middie Jack Speidell was able to tally his first collegiate goal on an assist from Botkiss, who zipped a pass into the middle of the arc to hit Speidell who was playing the post in the middle.
Momentum seemed to tip entirely into Harvard's favor throughout the first five minutes of play, but a loss at the faceoff X and some back-and-forth play saw Bryant notch its first goal of the night. From this point onward, play in the first quarter remained even, with the Bulldogs clawing back to end the quarter down by just two goals.
Returning to the field for the second quarter, Bryant took control of the game, outscoring the Crimson four-to-one. The second and third quarters were dictated by Bryant’s shifty offense, which took advantage of its one-on-one matchups on the wings. Sophomore midfielder Johnny Hackett exploited his short-stick matchups in the first two-and-a-half quarters, using his speed to dodge around Crimson junior SSDMs Andrew O’Berry and Ray Dearth, who were caught isolated with the attacker on the wing. It took a few plays for the Harvard defense to adjust from Providence’s more settled offense, which it mostly neutralized in its opening game, to Bryant’s quick play.
“[Hackett]’s a great player, credit to him. We didn’t have our normal scout period, so it took a minute to adjust to how they were playing,” Nelson said. “And, credit to our defense in that we kind of figured it out as the game went on. We started sliding, started going a little quicker and figuring out what we were doing down there.”
The slide, and eventual shift to a long-pole matchup on Hackett, saw the Crimson improve immensely throughout the second-half of the third, and fourth quarter play. Those quarters were slow on the offensive end as well, with momentum shifting in Bryant’s favor. The Bulldogs defense was eager to push the offense out wide, approaching the attack with vigor and locking down outlets. The onslaught left Harvard with little offensive opportunity and forced the attackers into individual efforts that proved fruitless against the quick slide.
King was heads-up in recognizing the attention he drew from the Bryant double-team, which was quick to lockdown the quarterback. He dished the ball nicely throughout the night, notching an impressive seven points on the game in three goals and four assists. All three of those assists were meant for Blake, who scored an impressive five goals on the evening, four of which were assisted. Blake and King, alongside sophomore attacker Teddy Malone – who added three points for the Crimson — brought a maturity to the offense, settling it down and returning to its team-oriented play late in the third.
“We had to be more of an outlet in front of the ball, this way he had someone to make the easy pass to after getting doubled,” Greene said about supporting King on the offensive end.
Harvard fought through a 12-minute scoring drought between the end of the second and middle of the third quarters, with Bryant mitigating the Crimson attack while notching three goals of its own, two of which got past Barnard with less than five minutes left to play. With momentum seeming to lean entirely towards the Bulldogs bench, Harvard made use of the 10-minute recess to reset and return to the field with a renewed vigor. The team stormed onto Jordan Field with about a minute left before the whistle, its desire to claw back and find its dominance from the first quarter tangible in the stands.
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When asked what changed offensively at the half, Greene said, “We didn’t really change much, we just had to trust our guys, play simple, not give into Bryant’s defense when they pressed out on us, and really just play our game.”
Bryant drew first blood in the third quarter, but Harvard answered right back, retaliating with three straight goals. The first tally was orchestrated by Malone, who recognized that the Bulldogs defense was disoriented finding its matchups, leaving King wide open on the left wing for a righty sniper from out wide.
Faceoffs went in favor of Bryant, with the Bulldogs winning 21-of-30 on the day. This stat skewed towards the visiting team even more aggressively in the second half; the Crimson defense made up for the loss of possession on the second play of the third quarter, however, when freshman LSM Joost de Koning stripped his attacker in front of the crease. Junior defender Logan Darrin, who contributed two key ground balls and a CTO, carried the ball through traffic, clearing it over the midline. The attack settled into its rotation, swinging the ball around before finding Botkiss on the left wing. Botkiss made a move down the left alley, drawing the adjacent slide as well as King’s defender who was minding him ball-side on his cut through the middle. Botkiss and King recognized Bryant’s error, and Botkiss made the tricky feed through traffic to hit King, who curled back for the pass and finished with a low lefty riser.
Play went back-and-forth between the two squads for about five minutes, with Harvard coming up with big plays that it could not convert into goals. SSDM Finn Jensen made a high-IQ play on the defensive end, taking advantage of a lackadaisical pass between two Bulldogs attackers to make an interception that had the Crimson bench erupting in cheers. The attack was unable to convert the possession on the fast break, with the Bryant goalie posting two standout saves.
On the next offensive possession, however, the attack continued to build on its momentum. By the end of the third quarter, the Crimson’s ball movement looked more confident and intentional. It played as a unit rather than as six individual attackers. Moving the ball quickly with about two and a half minutes in the third, freshman middie Jack Petersen hit Blake as he was cutting around the right side of the crease for a low side-arm rip into the back of the net.
With thirty-five seconds left in the third, a Bryant attacker made a shifty move around the side of the crease, stinging an unassisted shot on the dive. The Bulldogs quickly clamped the next faceoff, working the ball behind the cage where a Bryant attacker lobbed a skip pass to the top off the fan, catching the defense ball-watching, for a righty rip and goal with five seconds on the clock.
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Heading into the final 15 minutes of play down by one, the Crimson did not allow the two late-quarter goals to derail its path to victory. Malone broke the Bulldogs’ rhythm, striking first on an assist from O’Berry to even the score. Bryant responded with back-to-back goals less than a minute apart, one on an unassisted dodge from Hackett, and the second on a feed from Hackett to freshman attackman Patrick Walsh to put the Bulldogs up by two with 11 minutes to play.
Harvard tallied the next three goals, the first coming from a push by Sam King on an unsettled play. Keeping the ball from going over-and-back, O’Berry slung the ball to King, who hit Ip flying down the middle of the field. In what defined the Crimson’s success towards the end of the game, Ip unselfishly hit Blake, who was cutting down the left side of the field for an extra pass. Blake made a shifty move on his defender, finishing with a crafty shot on the doorstep.
“We started attacking the middle of their defense more,” Greene said. “Getting to the middle, moving the ball forward and making singles instead of going for the home run play every time.”
The momentum from the goal carried Harvard through till the end of the fourth. King notched the next goal on an unassisted drive, and fed Botkiss for the final goal of the night. The Rancho Sante Fe, Calif. native capped off the scoring for both teams with a lefty sniper off a pass from King with about seven minutes left to play.
With about a minute remaining in the fourth, Bryant had an opportunity to strike when a Bulldogs attackman beat Jensen on the one-on-one at the top of the box. Nelson neutralized the threat, tipping the attacker’s attempt to feed to a cutter making his move in front of the crease. Jensen scooped up the loose ball before he was sent flying by a Bryant player who was sidelined for 30 seconds for holding. The Crimson got the ball into its offensive end, playing keep-away with the Bulldogs for the final 50 seconds.
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Ending the night victorious, the Harvard squad can be proud of its perseverance and grittiness in fighting back against the feisty Bulldogs. However, it will need to strive for 60 minutes of solid lacrosse, like in its game against Providence, in its next bout and minimize its mistakes to compete against the prowess of its opponents in the Ivy League.
“I don’t think we need to change much,” Greene said. “I think just trusting our guys, going deeper into the shot clock, waiting for more open looks.”
“I think when we are getting beat quickly we can slide a little earlier, but we were working it out early in the season, so I think as the season goes on we’ll continue to progress in that area,” added Nelson.
Still early in the season, there are plenty of bright spots to focus on in the team’s last two performances, like the depth of Frisbie Family Head Coach Gerry Byrne’s roster. With several freshmen players making an impact in tight, nerve-racking moments against Bryant, it will be worth watching how the rookies perform this upcoming Saturday.
Heading into play this weekend, Harvard will face off against Patriot League foe Bucknell. The Crimson and the Bison will play at a neutral site in Wilton, Conn. Fans can watch the action live at Staples High School on Saturday at 1:30pm EST.
—Staff writer Katharine Forst can be reached at katharine.forst@thecrimson.com
