Crimson Booters Nip Nationally Ranked Big Red

All this talk of an Ivy League men's soccer title is a little premature. But with Saturday's 1-0 triumph over Cornell, the nation's 15th ranked squad, at the Business School, dreams of a conference championship have suddenly shifted from the ridiculous to the possible.

With five games left on the Ivy League slate, and the Crimson's league record at 1-1, anything can happen. The upset puts the booters at 6-2 on the year, and equals their number of wins for last year. You have to go back more than a decade, to 1969, to find a Harvard soccer squad with as good a start.

Defense, Defense

Like most of the Crimson triumphs so far this year, defense set the tone for much of Saturday's contest.

Strong efforts by the Crimson forward line of Michael Smith and Mauro Keller-Sarmiento, coupled with the impressive ball control play of the Harvard mid-fielders, kept the Big Red from clearing the ball out of its own defensive end.

Leader of the Pack

The defensive pressure in the forward zone in turn created opportunities for a rejuvenated Harvard offense, which peppered the Cornell goalie with 15 shots for the day.

An impressive offensive effort came in spite of the on-again-off-again rain, which slowed down the attack of both teams throughout the game. Only several stellar saves by the Big Red goalie kept the score from expanding.

...But Enough

The Crimson's lone goal, which turned out to be all it needed, came at 36:41 in the first half. It followed a familiar pattern.

Keller-Sarmiento took a Smith pass in the middle of the Cornell zone on the right side. He dribbled down the wing, slipped past three defenders, and shot a perfectly placed pass over to Lance Ayrault, stationed on the left side of the goal about six yards out.

All Ayrault had to do was slip the ball past an out of place Cornell goalkeeper, he said later. "It was really Mauro's goal."

The second half highlighted the play of a rapidly improving Harvard backfield. With the opening of the second stanza, the Cornell offense took the action to a slumbering Harvard squad, and for the first time pushed the ball into the Crimson end. Some timely play by fullback John Duggan and Peter Sergienko defused the threat and goalie Peter Walsh took care of what little the backfield let through with a couple of spectacular saves.

Up for the Game

Says Duggan, "Just knowing that they were ranked 15th in the country, got us so up for the game, we just had to win it." Coupled with the UPenn triumph over Ivy League favorite Columbia, the Harvard upset thrusts the squad into the thick of the Ivy League race.