M. Soccer Falls to Hartwick

Sometimes, you have to take a step back to take two steps forward.

Of course, for the Harvard men's soccer team, this season has been filled with non-conference woes that have preceded Ivy League triumphs, so perhaps a 2-1 defeat to out-of-league Hartwick yesterday could prime it for the necessary two wins against Dartmouth and Brown that would capture the Ivy title, no?

"The way things have been going, it's good to keep our non-league streak going," senior captain Pepper Brill said, with more than a touch of irony. "You know, we don't want to make any changes, the way our season has been going."

That Crimson "streak" has now finished at an ugly 0-7-1 in non-conference games on the season. But with nothing really to play for against Hartwick (9-4-2), Harvard (4-8-1, 4-1-0 Ivy) could be forgiven for letting its own stretch of three games without a loss come to a quick conclusion.

"It would have been good to keep that winning feeling going," sophomore forward Will Kohler acknowledged. "But we've lost before in the middle of the week and bounced back to win the Ivy League game on the weekend, so it's not as though we're really losing anything."

Rather surprisingly, given all of the above considerations, Harvard came out strong in the first half, controlling the midfield and tallying the lone goal of the opening half.

"I thought that was going to be a huge problem for us, having a letdown," Head Coach Stephen Locker said. "I was pleased with the way we came out in the first half--we didn't put the ball away when we had some chances, but I definitely thought we were outplaying them."

The 1-0 lead that Harvard took into halftime could so easily have been twice or thrice that. Senior Steve Gaffney fanned on a close-in rebound after a corner; freshman Toure McCluskey made a great one-on-three attack at the Warrior defense and almost forced his shot through the fingers of opposing keeper Pete Doneit.

Finally, in the 43rd minute, a counter-attack caught Hartwick with its defensive shorts around its ankles: Kohler started a run from the midfield stripe, accepted a 50-yard pass from sophomore stopper John Vrion is and dashed past the offside trap to flash his finish past Doneit.

"[Hartwick] was attacking, and most of their fullbacks were forward--it's a problem we've been having all season ourselves, getting caught out on the counter-attack," Kohler said. "Either [sophomore] Kevin [Silva] or I could have had the chance, but the ball went over his head, and I went in on goal pretty much unchallenged."

But Hartwick didn't intend to fold over in the second half, and perhaps with memories of last year's 4-1 loss (the Warriors were ranked in the top 15 then) still in mind, it attacked quickly and forcefully.

The equalizer came only 1:12 into the second half, and it came from a familiar Warrior strike partnership. Liam Heffernan got his sixth assist and George Neofotistos his 10th goal of the year after the former crossed past Harvard keeper Ned Carlson to the latter for the easiest of chances.

Harvard actually did well to weather the Warrior attack early in the second half; even though the Crimson carried advantages in shots (13-8) and corners (9-4) throughout the second half, most of the crucial fifteen minutes after halftime were spent in the Crimson's third of the field.

"We didn't come out with the same kind of intensity and confidence in the second half," Locker said. "I don't know why, but we didn't, and those missed chances in the first half came back to haunt us."

And with less than seven minutes to play, the Warriors finished the kill. Substitute forward Shawn Cassella--given six inches in height, a dead ringer for U.S. international defender Fernando Clavijo--caught the Crimson too far forward just as Kohler had beaten Hartwick earlier, getting by Harvard's defense and finishing past substitute keeper Ben Weeden.

Whether Cassella had managed to stay onside was a mystery even to some of the participants after the game. But neither team can really complain: Hartwick ended its day with a key road win.

And Harvard? Why break with tradition, right?