Crimson Stickmen Devastate Quakers

The Crimson laxmen's well-oiled offensive units combined with an airtight defense Saturday afternoon in Philadelphia, and rolled right over the lackluster Quaker stickmen, 13-5, giving the squad four wins in a row since a season-opening loss to Johns Hopkins.

Balance proved the key once again as senior co-captain Peter Predun and sophomore Mike Davis shared high scorer honors with four goals each. With a hot stick triggering the offensive punch of each of Harvard's first two midfield lines, the less-gifted Penn team fell quickly by the wayside.

Predun waited less than a minute into the first period before racking up the first Harvard tally. At the 46 second mark, the agile midfielder moved easily by a defender and blasted a high hard shot past Penn goalie Chuck Leitner for the unassisted marker.

Gary Pedroni picked up two of his four assists in that first stanza, first catching the fast-cutting Predun, who took a pass all the way for another goal, and then pegging Davis on the crease at the ten-minute mark, where the sophomore rippled the twines with a shovel shot.

"The key to our offensive output is constant motion," Davis said yesterday. "Their defense was not necessarily ragged, but our motion-packed offense creates openings any team would find difficult to defend against."

Only the fast start and resulting 3-0 lead the Crimson held at the opening of the second period protected the squad through the next half hour of action as the vastly inferior Penn squad played over its head.

Exploiting the talent of midfielder Brad Glaser and attackman Gary Smolokoff, the Quakers matched the Crimson goal for goal.

Penn drew close at the 3:12 mark in the final quarter, when midfielder Dave Papenfuss found co-captain Peter Eisenbrandt. With a quick dodge Eisenbrandt pulled down the pass and tossed in Penn's final score.

Harvard supergoalie John Lechner, having lapsed momentarily to mere mortality in the middle of the game, once again rose to the occasion and dug out the exploding grounders and whizzing bullets the Quakers tried to slip by.

Still holding a 7-5 lead, the stickmen played the last 11 minutes of the game with blood in their eyes, ripping off six unanswered goals to shelve any Penn comeback hopes.

On his final tally of the afternoon, Davis snared a clear pass from Rich Doyle on a fastbreak and poured it in to ignite the Harvard offense.

Veteran attacker Mike Ward cut sharply toward the cage after hauling down another of Norm Forbush's patented feeds and notched his first goal of the season. Forbush, who picked up his fourth assist of the afternoon on Ward's tally--he leads the team with nine on the year--scored himself just seven seconds later when Pedroni connected with him on a fastbreak.

Freshman Brendan Meagher's wizardry with the clamp and rake hold on the face-off allowed the Crimson to take control so swiftly.

Final Fling

With a cool 10-5 advantage, Harvard kept moving to the goal with keen precision. Predun and Ward each added another goal before freshman Rich Rainaldi closed out the barrage with an unassisted dribbler at 12:02, for the 13th and final score.