Minutemen Rally, Shoot Down Crimson

The UMass Minutemen arrived at Soldiers Field yesterday afternoon with their lacrosse sticks loaded, and before you could say bicentennial, rifled home six quick goals en route to a 15-7 drubbing of the host Harvard club.

UMass, sporting a squad ranked fifteenth in the nation, utilized some of the local talent of its Long Island studded team to do in the Crimson. John Martin of Needham started the shots flying at 55 seconds of the first period with his first of four goals, and brother Paul got into the act from his defensive position to notch a tally also.

Flat First Quarter

The start of the game was delayed for about fifteen minutes as the ground crew corrected an error in the lining of the crease and Crimson mentor Bob Scalise said he thought that was partially responsible for Harvard being so flat in the first quarter. "We're an emotional team and when we were forced to wait before the game it snapped our concentration," he said.

After the Minutemen's six-goal scoring burst Harvard was relegated to the task of playing catch-up ball and although a brief third-quarter rally brought them within three, at 9-6, UMass regained its first half form and proceeded on yet another six goal scoring rampage.

Scott Clemson was the first Crimson stickman to find the range as he scored a powerplay goal just before the first quarter gun. Harvard was able to match the Minutemen goal-for-goal in the second stanza, as Jim Quinn, Scott Mead and Bruce Bruckmann all blusted home tallies.

Massachusetts coach Ron Garber attributed his troops' victory not to an explosive offense but to a hard-nosed defense. "Our close one-to-one defense was particularly strong today and I thought our middles held McCall and Bruckmann in check all day, limiting Harvard's attack significantly," he said.

Man-Advantage Situation

The Harvard offense was forced to rely on the man-advantage situation all day as the UMass backfield men thwarted all even man play. In the third period Bill MacKenzie and Quinn both fired in powerplay scores and Kevin McCall, in the last minute of play, also tallied with the visitors shorthanded.

Scalise said yesterday that he was disappointed with the entire team effort. "I had seen us play this poorly in practice but was hoping it would never happen in a game. We didn't get the face-offs today, we didn't pick up ground balls and we shot poorly. It just wasn't our day," he said.