Bulldogs Stun Laxmen, 13-10

The Harvard lacrosse program took a big step backwards Saturday, losing to a mediocre Yale team, 13-10. While the Crimson stickmen have dropped some contests in the last few years they might have won, Saturday's rainy debacle marked the first time since Bob Scalise became coach that the team lost a game it clearly should have won.

When the teams took the muddy field, Harvard was ranked 14th in the country, while the visiting Bulldogs were the only Ivy League contingent currently not in the top 20. Unfortunately, for the two-hour stretch that counted, Harvard was not the better team.

Playwright's Dream

For the first five minutes of play, atleast, things went according to the script. Billy MacKenzie notched a pair to give Harvard an early 2-0 advantage. After middie Brian Matthews countered for the Elis. Crimson co-captain Sandy White connected for his third of the season.

Less than half a minute later, Harvard got another tally from midfielder Mike Faught, who has emerged in recent games as the team's most explosive middie. The favorites led, 4-1, and seemed on their way to an easy win.

But Yale's sophomore netminder, John Sager, decided he didn't like the way things were going, and started gobbling up everything the Crimson shooters sent his way while his teammates started to click offensively.

Over the next 15 minutes of play, when Harvard was only coming up with one tally, a balanced Yale attack was going wild. Faught got his second of the day, but seven different Elis tickled the twines to give Yale an 8-5 lead.

As the first half came to an end, freshman Pete Predun got a goal to go with the two assists he had garnered earlier, and Harvard was close, 8-6.

During the intermisspon, as the spectators scurried for cover and a brief respite from the pelting rains, they had to be figuring that Harvard would take control in the second half.

The stickmen almost did. Gordie Nelson cut the lead to one, but Yale's 5-ft. 5-in. John Piazza answered for the Bulldogs. Jamie Egasti cut the lead to one again, but Piazzo fed off to Dave Stack for Yale's tenth tally.

Then star middie Andy Murr, who paced Yale with five points, connected for an 11-8 Bulldog bulge. Freshman Dave Wigglesworth pulled Harvard close again, only to have Yale Captain Jim Graham boost the lead back to three. In the final minute of the third quarter, Murr converted Piazza's pass into the third goal of his hat trick.

Harvard needed a big fourth-quarter rally to pull this one out, and goalie Jim Michelson saw to it that Yale got no farther ahead, making some fine saves and holding the Elis scoreless in the final stanza.

But the Crimson offense saw some fine shots go wide and started to throw the ball away in frustration. When the stickmen did get off a shot, Sager was always there. Harvard got the third goal of Faught's hat trick, but that was all.

The teams sloshed through the mud in the final, meaningless minutes, but the upset was final, 13-10.

The stickmen travel South next weekend looking for better weather and a chance to get back on the track.

Harvard rallied from a 10-6 deficit last spring to edge the Tigers, 11-10, playing in the same kind of weather that helped bring the stickmen to a halt Saturday.

Princeton has gone 3-4 so far this year against a brutal schedule that included the three Maryland meanies: Maryland, Hopkins and Navy. The Tigers also met undefeated, fourth-ranked Penn, bowing to the Quakers in a hard-fought triple-overtime marathon, 9-8.