Harvard Lacrosse: A Pair of Big Brown Victories

Don't mention the number "57" to the Harvard men's lacrosse team. In fact, you might even broach a touchy subject mentioning Heinz ketchup to the laxmen.

In February the Crimson scrimmaged with Brown on the plastic grass on top of the Bruins' athletic complex and, after four hours of frustration, came away 57-6 losers.

But yesterday in Providence, the laxmen earned a healthy measure of regular-season revenge by topping the nationally tenth ranked Bruins, 13-11.

The Crimson came back from a three-goal deficit in the final quarter, notching five scores over the stunned hosts who were ranked first in New England going into the contest.

The Crimson, 3-5 entering the game, was not exactly Jimmy the Greek's pick-of-the-week. In fact, considering Harvard's performance against Yale on Saturday, when the laxmen allowed the Elis their first Ivy win in five years, there didn't seem to be any chance that the Crimson might ambush the Bruins.

And with only 10 minutes to go and trailing, 11-8, the laxmen seemed out of it, although the blowout that Brown had planned a la 57, had never materialized.

But before the game, the Bruins, no masters of psychological tactics, had been reminding the guests of the February fiasco, as if you need to be reminded about 51-goal losses. So with the giant napping on a three-goal pillow in the fourth quarter, the Crimson was ready for some sweet revenge.

Rob Hawley and then Peter Follows scored to cut the deficit to one. But with under a minute to go, the laxmen were still a tally short.

However, with just 46 seconds left. Hawley dodged down a wing rolled back and beat helpless Bruin goalie Scott Lohan.

After the faceoff, merely 16 seconds after Hawley's performance Follows notched the go-ahead from down low.

The Bruin fouled on the ensuring faceoff and as the Crimson was running the clock out. Hawley managed to beat Lohan one more time with just a second left in the game.

As excited as the laxmen were about the game and how the team had finally lived up to its potential, they were just as excited about how the Bruins looked and felt after the game.

"They were so bummed," freshman goalie Mike Bergmann said, after going the whole way for the Crimson and notching 23 saves, keeping the laxmen in the contest in the early going. "Their heads were hung and they weren't saying a word."

"There's no way we should have beat them and they knew it."

Now it was Brown's turn to remember back to the scrimmage and maybe think that if they hadn't embarrassed Harvard with all those goals...

"They destroyed us," said Hawley. "They though we were nothing."

Now, of course, they know better.

THE NOTEBOOK: Harvard has its first non-vacation home game on Saturday against Princeton, 16-6 losers to Brown, at 2 p.m. on Ohiri Field...Hawley led all scorers with four goals: Follows had three as did freshman Martin Garcia...Bergmann seems to have temporarily resolved the goalkeeping situation with this fine performance.