UMass Burns M. Lax Early, Holds On for 8-6 Win

It does seem as if there is a point spread working against the Harvard men's lacrosse team. UMASS  8 Harvard  6

If you have gotten to one of its most recent games five or 10 minutes late, you probably will have seen the scoreboard reading 3-0 for the visitor.

The problem is that Harvard has really been the underdog in those games and that the scoreboard wasn't automatically set like that--the Crimson has been awful in the opening minutes of its last four games.

Each game has been against Top-20 competition, and each result has been a loss. No. 18 Harvard (4-5, 2-2 Ivy) fell behind 3-0 to the 14th ranked University of Massachusetts (4-3) in the first 7:42 of yesterday's rain-soaked game at Ohiri Field and never was able to come back, losing 8-6.

The losing streak seems to have taken its toll on at least some of the players. Several team members uttered expletives after the match concluded, and a couple others like senior Jamie Ames threw his helmet and stick down in frustration.

Whether Harvard starts out flat or thinks "Here we go again" once the opposition scores first or not, the players have had a tendency to let down and fall behind by several more before they can pull themselves together.

Yesterday was no exception.

"I don't know what happens to us in the beginning of games," co-captain Steve Gaffney said. "It probably stems from our not picking up ground balls and possessing the ball, and then they capitalize and we get down early."

Minuteman Brendan Glass, who scored five goals on the afternoon in the quagmire, opened the scoring 2:21 into the game when he finished off a pass from Mike Valente. UMass had controlled the ball for practically two full minutes before the goal, and that may have worn down Harvard's defense.

Jeremy Murphy made it 2-0 on a behind-the-back shot that sailed by sophomore goalie Rob Lyng (17 saves), and Glass increased the deficit to 3-0 less than two minutes later.

"Glass has to have the quickest release of all the attackers I've seen this year," Lying said.

Would the deluge continue?

The UMass scoring deluge didn't, although Mother nature took much longer to run out her course.

The Crimson got right back into the contest with a pair of goals--the first coming off the stick of senior Jamie Ames with 5:21 left in the first quarter and the second by junior Mike Eckert with only 25 ticks left on the clock.

Getting out of the first period down by one after the disastrous opening would have been a big plus.

The problem is that UMass scored 19 seconds later. Glass converted a tic-tac-toe-like passing display after the face-off and beat Lyng with six seconds remaining.

"They did a great job of moving the ball on us and getting it inside," Lyng said. "They've got quick sticks and good sticks."

Two more times during the game the Crimson would cut the deficit to one, but it never got the equalizer.

Eckert made a great effort early in the second quarter, making several cuts and whipping a shot through the UMass goalie Tom LoPresti's five hole to cut the deficit to 4-3. Eckert almost tied the game with 7:43 left before halftime, but LoPresti made a big save to preserve UMass's lead.

The Minutemen added a goal to hold a 5-3 halftime lead, but junior Chris Wojcik brought the Crimson to 5-4 1:17 into the third period, cutting across the width of the field from 30 feet out and beating the netminder.

However, that would be Harvard's last goal for practically 27 minutes, in which the Minutemen scored three times.

"We didn't generate any kind of offense," Harvard coach Scott Anderson said. "All we needed was a little burst of offense, but we didn't get it."

The crusher was the Minutemen's seventh goal.

Lyng had made several huge saves in the third quarter to hold the UMass lead to 6-4, but the sophomore made one unfortunate mistake. Lyng's attempted pass upfield was intercepted by Glass, who deposited the ball past the bewildered goaltender with 1:11 left in the third quarter.

With the three-goal margin, the Minutemen played a game of keepaway and succeeded from allowing good Harvard offensive pressure until the final two minutes when Eckert and Gaffney scored to make the final 8-6.

"They're pretty good, but we should have beaten them," Gaffney said. "We just played terribly. Our offense is not playing very well."

Four losses in a row will very often take its toll on a team. Harvard definitely is feeling down, but it has been facing top-quality competition in its last four games--Notre Dame, Brown, Princeton and UMass.

"We need a game where we can just dominate and get some confidence back," Anderson said. "It's a hard thing to do when you have opponents [like the last four]."

Arch rival Yale comes to Ohiri Field on Saturday for a 1 p.m. matchup. Yale, like Harvard, has struggled recently.

For Harvard, it's a must win. A season that started so promisingly at 4-1 has now been turned upside down with four straight losses, and a win over the hated Bulldogs definitely would ease the tension the team is feeling.

"We better beat Yale," Gaffney said.

UMASS, 8-6 at Ohiri Field UMass  4  1  2  1  --  8 Harvard  2  1  1  --  6

G: UM--Glass (5), Murphy, Grande, DelPercio; Harvard--Eckert (3), Gaffney, Ames, Wojcik, S: UM--LoPresti 11; Harvard--Lyng 17.