Lacrosse Team Stops Engineers, 13-7; MacKenzie Leads First Quarter Surge

The Harvard lacrosse team played only hard enough to win on yesterday's bright and lazy late April afternoon. The laxmen cased into a 5-1 first quarter lead, and held out manned MIT at arm's length the rest of the way in posting a 13-7 victory on the Engineers' home turf. The victory brings Harvard's season mark to 2-7.

The play of Bill MacKenzie early in the first quarter helped get the Crimson offense untracked and break a 1-1 deadlock. Six minutes into the period, Bruce Bruckmann swept in from midfield and turned a MacKenzie pass into Harvard's second goal. A scant 15 seconds later. MacKenzie found an opening and whistled a quick score past perplexed MIT netminder Singer.

Sunshine

From that point the game belonged to Harvard, as the Crimson padded its lead with two more first period tallies and was content to soak up some of the brilliant April sunshine as the afternoon wore on.

Balance was the key to Harvard's offensive attack. Nine different players registered goals. High-scoring Bill Tennis led the parade with two goals and three, assists, while MacKenzie wound up with a pair of assists to go with his two goals.

Kevin McCall twice found the Engineer net unguarded, and captain Jim Quinn's quick stick twice converted feeds from behind the net into Harvard goals. Bruce Bruckmann, Scott Clemson, Al Costello, Mike Doherty, and Sandy White all had single tallies to round out the Harvard scoring.

After their disastrous first quarter, the Engineers played the Crimson evenly, though Harvard finished with a vast statistical advantage. The Crimson peppered the MIT net with 53 shots; the Engineers managed only 29. Harvard also controlled 21 or 26 face-offs and picked up 48 ground balls to MIT's 24.

Perhaps the surest indicator of the Crimson's decided superiority in the game was the fact that for the first time this season, everyone on the roster saw action. Bruce Poliquin and Jim Michaelson gave regular net-minder LeRoy Thompson fourth quarter relief, though he little needed it in a relatively easy outing.

The laxmen get a chance to relax until Saturday afternoon when they will do battle with Princeton's Tigers in New Jersey.