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NEW HAVEN, Conn. — The No. 12 Harvard men’s lacrosse team (6-1, 0-1 Ivy) succumbed to historic foe No. 10 Yale (4-1, 1-0 Ivy), 17-15, at Reese Stadium yesterday. In a far departure from what is typically the last meeting of the season for the two squads, the Ancient Eight teams found themselves battling for glory in their first league matchups of the 2024 season.

“The Yale-Harvard thing being the last game of the year is a football thing in my opinion. It’s another Ivy League game. And, they’re a great team, it’s a competitive game,” said Yale’s Head Coach Andy Shay. “Every team in our league is really good, it’s just an Ivy League game the way I look at it.”

“Whenever it’s the Harvard-Yale game it’s a big deal,” added Frisbie Family Head Coach Gerry Byrne. “It’s a rivalry that’s a hundred years plus old, so that obviously carries a little weight, but we don’t look at it relative to being 6-0, or having been 6-0, it’s just the next game that’s up.”

The game – which was an offensive battle for both squads – was divided into two distinct halves, with the Bulldogs coming out strong early and running away to a decisive 8-3 lead in the first quarter, maintaining that momentum through the half to end the first 30 minutes of play up 13-6. The second half, in what has been the Crimson’s signature so far this season, fell entirely to Harvard, with the Crimson defense only allowing Yale to post a single goal in the third. Despite the valiant effort to regroup, Byrne was unable to dig his squad out of the deficit and clinch another thrilling comeback victory.

Yale’s impressive performance at the faceoff X, led by junior FOGO Machado Rodriguez, enabled the Bulldogs to maintain its lead throughout the first half and remain competitive with the Crimson during its slump in the second. The Chaminade product went 68 percent on the afternoon, besting all three of Harvard’s FOGOs in junior Andrew DeGennaro, sophomore Matt Barraco, and touted freshman phenom Owen Umansky. Rodriguez was successful on the clamps, hearing the whistle well which allowed him to win the ball forward and create fast break opportunities for the Yale attack.

“Mac was great, and I think that that allowed us to build that lead in the first half,” Shay added. “It is what it is. You’ve got a great faceoff guy and you want to lean into him, and he’s been great for us.”

Junior LSM Jack Stuzin, who was sidelined early in the game due to an injury, struck paydirt for the Bulldogs a mere ten seconds into play, capitalizing on the quick possession at the fifty. Instead of sprinting off the field to allow for an offensive line change, Stuzin held his space at the top of the arc, where – in the fray – he was left alone for an easy pass and rip past senior goalie Christian Barnard. The Yale squad and stands erupted into raucous cheers as the junior pumped his fist in celebration.

“Their guy was right on the whistle and they were able to not only win faceoffs, but score off of multiple,” Byrne said. “We had to change our kind of mindset that we had to maybe stop going for the win and go for just keeping him exiting forward. So, once we started kind of jamming him up a little bit it became more of a 50-50 battle.”

DeGennaro secured the second faceoff, and the Crimson was able to level the score 1-1 just a minute later. Ball movement looked solid for the attack, and Harvard looked patient as it worked the ball around the perimeter. Junior attackman Sam King – the fifth highest point scorer in the nation – made light work of his defender, sophomore Patrick Pisano, who overplayed him on the outside as he made his signature question mark dodge around the right side of the crease. In his effort to mitigate that lane, Pisano allowed King to roll underneath him and get the inside step on the crease. The Baltimore native sent the ball squarely past junior goalie Jared Paquette to make it an even game.

Yale scored the next two goals before sophomore attackman Teddy Malone – who posted a career-best performance – easily sailed past his short-stick matchup with senior SSDM Jack Monfort. Malone utilized his shiftiness as he split past Monfort down the right alley, hitching and pausing for a second – which threw Monfort off as he thought Malone was looking to feed into the middle – before taking off towards the goal, leaving Monfort in his wake as he bounced it past Paquette.

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Junior middie Carson Kuhl tallied the next two goals for the Bulldogs, which flew by Barnard a mere six seconds apart, before Malone was once again able to stall the Yale stretch on a feed from senior attackman Graham Blake. Rodriguez secured the initial clamp at the faceoff, but a clean back-check from DeGennaro sent the ball flying out of bounds for an easy Crimson clear. Yale was late to slide downfield on the fastbreak which allowed Blake to stretch his defender wide on the wing and hit Malone. The sophomore was sitting pretty by himself cross-fan as he quickly duked out Paquette with a low fake, high finish, in the top left corner.

“I think on defense and as a team we showed our ability to crawl back into any game no matter what the score is. We don’t get rattled,” Barnard said. “That said, we need to find a way to start faster next Saturday. Yale was moving at a lightning-quick speed to start the game and we couldn’t quite keep up at the beginning. However, as the game wore on, we started to control the pace of play.”

In what would have changed the momentum of the entire first half, a strategic challenge by Shay saw the referees wave off a goal from Malone on the crease for an apparent goalmouth violation. Instead of leading by just one goal, at 5-4, Yale gained possession of the ball on its offensive end, where it pushed forward full throttle to end the first quarter with an 8-3 lead.

“We played really well, efficiently, offensively in the first half,” Shay said. “Second half I think our shots weren’t the best, and they started playing better. And a couple penalties, and the next thing you know it’s a much tighter game. If the game lasted three more minutes, who knows what would have happened.”

The Crimson saw red as it stormed the field to start the second quarter, with King tallying two points – an unassisted goal two minutes into play and an assist to junior middie Miles Botkiss a minute and a half later – to narrow the Bulldogs’ lead to two. Despite the charge, Yale asserted its dominance and retaliated with five-straight goals from Kuhl, sophomore attackman David Anderson, and junior middie Johnny Keib. King stopped the bleeding with 19 seconds left in the half, scoring on a last ditch effort off a feed from Botkiss. Botkiss found space with a lefty dodge around his defender, racing across the fan, where he spotted King posted in the middle. Botkiss zipped the pass inside, finding King, who was able to get his hands free for a lefty riser on the doorstep past Paquette. The referees threw a flag on the play, which granted Harvard possession to start the second quarter and a man-up advantage.

“You’ve practiced end of game scenarios, and you don’t necessarily practice being down four or five goals in the first quarter, but you develop a mindset,” Byrne said. “And the fact that we’ve had success in the Vermont game and Bucknell, and some of these other games where we went down, you develop a kind of callousness and you develop a kind of poise that allows you to feel like we’re not out of this yet.”

While Shay’s review impacted the momentum of the first half, a slew of penalties against Yale throughout the third quarter, which afforded the Harvard attack several man-up opportunities, defined the remaining thirty minutes of play. Malone scored the first of three man-up goals during the quarter with 9 seconds remaining in the power play, finding success again by holding space on the left side of the crease for a quick fake and finish past the Yale netminder. The Bulldog’s senior middie Thomas Bragg – who is known for his cannon-like outside shot – responded, sailing a lefty bullet past Barnard. However, a set of penalties against Pisano and sophomore defender Eric Platten sent Harvard up two men for 30 seconds and up one man for a locked-in two minutes. Pisano was sidelined for a thirty second push, and Platten sat for an entire two minutes due to unnecessary contact to the head. It was this moment of being unable to control its controllables that forced Yale to have to defend against a Harvard comeback.

“Sometimes your opponents make mistakes, which they made a couple of penalties in one play, that – in a game they were in control of – you know, five minutes later, it was a two-goal game,” Byrne said. “So, you know momentum shifts like that are opening a door for an opponent. You don’t control that on your end, sometimes they just do things that open the door for you.”

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Sophomore offensive middie Logan Ip struck first on the power play, sending a blazing righty shot past Paquette from the left wing with 10 seconds left on the two-man advantage. His goal waved the remainder of Pisano’s penalty, but his quick-strike kept the Crimson up a player for an additional minute and forty seconds. Blake, who alongside junior attackman Liam Griffiths has been lethal on the man-up this season, found the back of the net 40 seconds later on a high-to-low feed from King.

The Crimson man-up unit has found its stride mid-season, moving the ball with intention and striking the gaps left vulnerable by its opponent. Blake, who has been a leader on the offense alongside King and Malone, crept around the right side of the crease, maintaining his post a step above goal line extended, where he received the risky cross-fan pass from King for a wide-open fake and finish on the doorstep.

“I think everything went well for us offensively,” Malone said. “They couldn’t really guard us in any facet. Every time we touched the ball we got good looks, and I’m very confident in how our offense has performed all season long, and I really think that showed during this game.”

The Harvard bench erupted in cheers, quieting the previously vocal Yale stands, as the Crimson began to claw its way back into the game. The next three goals would fall in favor of Byrne’s squad, with Ip scoring about a minute and a half later on a drive down the left alley. Ip got a step on his defender which allowed him to lower his shoulder and get underneath senior middie Patrick Hackler before finding paydirt on the crease. Ninety seconds later, Malone sealed the team’s dominant third quarter performance with an additional tally to narrow Yale’s lead to just three. An air of anticipation could be felt throughout the stadium as Malone made a shifty move on junior defender Michael Alexander, driving down the right alley as he bodied up Alexander, using his physical prowess to separate from the West Islip, N.Y. native, who overplayed him as he raced down the right side. Malone felt Alexander over-anticipate and rolled back, switching his hands to increase his angle before letting a lefty riser fly past Paquette’s right shoulder. Before the ball even left his cross, the stadium erupted in cheers.

While the third quarter was all Harvard, the fourth was gridlocked, as each squad responded to the other’s shifts in momentum. Ip struck first for the Crimson just 45 seconds into play, utilizing his speed to gain a step on senior defender Brett Mallee as he bolted out of his right-to-left outside roll dodge on the left elbow, creating space for his hands that allowed him to send a lefty sniper past Paquette. Bragg and freshman middie Cole Cashion responded, breaking the Bulldog’s 14 minute scoring drought to send their squad to a 16-12 advantage. Malone posted his fifth of the day three minutes after Cashion tallied his first collegiate goal.

The play started down on the defensive end on a CTO from junior SSDM Ray Dearth, who stripped Yale’s star senior attacker Matt Brandau at the point. The short-stick defensive play from Dearth, junior captain Andrew O’Berry and sophomores Owen Guest and Finn Jensen stood out throughout the game, and was a testament to the team’s improved communication. Dearth was unable to secure the initial ground ball, but Barnard was able to scoop it in front of the crease and carried it himself across the midline to ensure the Harvard clear would stand.

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Barnard posted the best performance of his career with 19 saves and a 52 percent save rate. While the Greenwich, Conn. native struggled to see the ball high during the first quarter, a series of key saves throughout the third and fourth helped the defense compensate for its skewed play time due to consistent losses at the faceoff X. As the ESPN announcers said during the game, Barnard “might be the fastest goalie that I’ve seen in recent memory.”

Using that speed to his advantage, Barnard hit a cutting attackman, who settled the ball to allow for offensive substitutions before starting its rotations. Malone ultimately struck paydirt with an outside left-to-right roll reminiscent of Ip’s goal before his, nailing the ball home with a lefty bouncer through Paquette’s five-hole. Two minutes later, King found success with his signature move around the right side of the crease, battling through the switch on a pick set by sophomore offensive middie John Aurandt IV, narrowing Yale’s lead to just two goals with 5:33 on the clock.

DeGennaro secured the win at the faceoff X, a crucial victory that should have set the Crimson up to narrow its deficit to just one goal, as a one-minute flag was called against Yale for tripping. Despite the advantage, Harvard lost possession of the ball on its offensive end. Then, in a costly defensive error, Barnard left his cage to guard a low attacker in the ten-man-ride, despite not needing to take the risk due to the man-up advantage. Hackler recognized the opportunity and sailed a massive ball from the opposite goal line, finding the back of the cage in what would ultimately clinch Yale’s victory. While King found success one last time on an unassisted take around the right side of the cage, the Bulldogs ended the back-and-forth battle victorious.

“We need to work on our fast break defense. I think we have to work on the ground balls,” Byrne said. “We were at a deficit, not only at the faceoffs, but we were losing the ground ball faceoffs, which means that the time of possession was skewed in the first half. So, a lot of ground ball work and a lot of faceoff work, and a lot of unsettled, fast-break defense.”

The Crimson will need to bounce back from the narrow loss quickly as the team is set to host No. 13 Princeton (4-3, 0-1 Ivy) on Saturday at 12:00 pm on Jordan Field. The game will serve as Harvard’s alumni game, which will bring much-needed energy to the stadium. The game will also be streamed on ESPN+.

—Staff writer Katharine Forst can be reached at katharine.forst@thecrimson.com