UMass Blanks Booters Again Scoring Twice in Second Half

The ghost of Lyman Bullard has come back to haunt Harvard soccer.

Yesterday, Harvard unveiled a two-man forward line against UMass, and although the Crimson dominated the game, it was unable to score. The Minutemen, ranked 13th in this week's national polls, and number one in New England, took the game, 2-0, on the strength of two second-half goals.

Diehards from 1975 will remember Bullard, the man who led the Crimson to postseason play in his junior year, but scored just one goal the following season while playing on a three-man front line geared to feed him the ball.

For the first half, Harvard had the wind at its back and stalled the powerful UMass offense (16 goals in four games) with four fullbacks and four halfbacks in what Harvard striker Walter Diaz called "a counter-attack style."

Cross Your Heart

Diaz and Nelson were the sole attackmen for the Crimson, but they received support from wing halfbacks Mauro Keller-Sarmiento and Andy Kronfeld, who ranged up and down the field on their respective wings.

After about ten minutes, the new arrangement meshed and Diaz was sent in alone on several scoring runs, but he was never able to shake the UMass fullbacks for an open shot.

Harvard also went to the wings well, as Mike Smith and Ron Ost, a sophomore fullback playing impressively in his first varsity start, made some good feeds.

Captain Jim Langton initiated Harvard's best chance of the half with 15 minutes gone. He broke up the middle from his fullback position, sent Kronfeld down the left wing, where he crossed the ball to Nelson in the goalmouth. But Nelson's tip-in shot was pounced on by the UMass goalie.

In the second half, the rain came, and Harvard's attack bogged down on the slippery field. This was the opportunity that the stifled UMass offense had been waiting for.

At 12:50, Minuteman co-captain Joel Mascolo sprung loose on a trough pass from Tasso Koutsoukos. Crimson goalie Ed Weinfurter had no chance as Mascolo lofted the ball over him.

UMass got its second goal at 29:10 as Mascolo fired a loose ball into the Harvard net. That was all the Minutemen needed and although the Crimson outshot them, 19-13, the booters were unable to mount a serious challenge.

NOTEBOOK: Goalie Bill Blood has joined Alberto Villar on the injury list, having injured his knee in practice. On the credit side of the ledger, Lorenzo diBonaventura was back in action on the four-man back line, fully recovered from his injury. Freshmen Robert Fritz and Peter Walsh, who just joined the varsity, both saw some action. Walsh replaced Weinfurtner in the nets for the last 15 minutes, despite suffering from some knee problems himself. The booters take on the Alumni, Saturday at 11 a.m.