Crimson Booters Shut Out Dublin 2-0; Solid Defense Saves Day for Harvard

The Crimson soccer squad picked up its second win of the young season Saturday and goalie Steve Kidder got his second shutout, blanking University of Dublin, 2-0.

It was the ninth game in the United States for the young Irish squad and its third shutout loss. Brown and University of Rhode Island both squashed the Dublin frosh, 3-0 and 4-0 respectively.

The Irish looked good in the exhibition match, however, mounting several near-successful scoring drives and playing Harvard even through the first half. With seniors Felix Adedeji and Ric LaCivita out it was even tougher than usual for Harvard to play offensively.

In fact, it was really the hard work of Kidder and fullbacks Brian Fearnett and Lawson Wulsin that frustrated the Dubliners and gave Harvard the edge. All three combined to shut off the Irish and control the game.

Give Me a Break

Play tended to concentrate around midfield most of the game. Both teams penetrated on the wings occasionally and hoped for a break. Harvard got the first one.

Bob Aveitl set up the play at 6:25 of the second half, booting a corner kick perfectly to the head of sophomore forward Steve Hines who used every inch of his six feet to beat the Irish goalie. Four minutes later forward Leroy Thompson made a picture pass, centering the ball from left wing to Audit who tapped it to the right side of the net.

After that Harvard turned on the defense and handled Doblin fairly easily. The Irish were demoralized after the second goal. They began to tire and play sloppily while Harvard ate up the clock.

The pattern developing in Harvard's game is encouraging: they played tight defense on Saturday and showed they could control the ball--at least they controlled it much better than they did against MIT.

Stingy and Punchless

But the team has no scoring punch--no way to consistently pressure the opposition and make its own goals. Harvard's game plan now is to play aggressive defense and wait for the other team to make a mistake.

The style can work, as it did against the Irish, but it calls for constant heads-up ball and for every player to be smart all the time. Most especially it calls for the defense to be vigilant and the goalie to be very stingy. The idea is to win lots of games 1-0.

It is a real sticky question whether Harvard could control a real powerful team, say for instance, Penn, which has so much depth it starts only two sophomores.

For now, however, the Crimson is undefeated in league and exhibition play and managed to handle Dublin about like Brown and URI did. Harvard looked much better against Dublin than it did against MIT; the team was more confident and aggressive--all encouraging signs.