M. Lacrosse Leaves NCAA Hopes Unfulfilled in Frustrating Season

1996

Sports Statistics

Record: 8-6, 4-2 Ivy

Ivy Finish: 3rd

Coach: Scott Anderson

Key Players: Captain Rob Lyng; Juniors Mike Ferrucci, Jim Bevilacqua and Robert Hatch

1997

Following the Harvard men's lacrosse team this year was like riding the world's fastest roller coaster--just when you thought the Crimson had cleared its worst hair-raising drop, it slowly climbed up an even steeper hill and went screaming down into even more nauseating depths.

The Crimson did finish the season with a winning record of 8-6, 4-2 Ivy, but Harvard entered 1997 with higher expectations than just surpassing the .500 mark. The men's lacrosse team was looking to pick up right where it had left off the year before--a dream season that did not end until it lost to Virginia in the quarterfinals of the NCAA tournament.

The Crimson returned two star starting attackmen, junior Mike Ferrucci and junior Jim Bevilacqua and its gutsy goalie and captain Rob Lyng to the 1997 season. In addition, some promising midfielders, such as juniors Lou Bevilacqua and Owen Leary, as well as some tough longsticks in junior Robert Hatch and senior Jeremy Linzee were expected to step up their game this season.

The Crimson did lose a good deal of senior talent to graduation last year, especially leading- scorer Mike Eckert, but Ferrucci and Bevilacqua had more than enough talent to pick up any offensive slack.

The season did look promising for Harvard from the beginning. The Crimson opened up with a 2-0 record in March despite Mother Nature's attempts to prevent lacrosse from being played in the Northeast. An 18-9 win over Boston College (B.C.) in Harvard's second game was perhaps the most promising of its first few wins, as both the offense and defense looked like they had NCAA-caliber material.

Only three days after the B.C. game, the Crimson's hopeful beginning was rudely shattered with a 10-9 overtime loss to the Hartford Hawks. At the time the loss was shocking, since Hartford was not expected to be a lacrosse power-house this season.

Against Hartford the Crimson showed how poorly it was capable of playing. Ferrucci, who was the Crimson's leading scorer that day with four goals, seemed to be pulling his team along like a stubborn dog on a leash.

In such a short lacrosse season, every loss is a huge blow to a team's chances of making the NCAA tournament.

"If we're going to be back in the tournament this year, we've got to pick it up right now or else we're going to bow out pretty early," said Ferrucci after the Hartford loss.

Maybe it would have been easier on the fans if the Crimson had bowed out of the season early, but Harvard went on to beat two Ivy League opponents. Junior Jim Bevilacqua and Ferrucci were proving to be an impressive attack duo as Bevilacqua's dazzling speed perfectly complemented Ferrucci's long-range sniper shooting prowess.

This combination was leading to some big-time offensive games that included an 18-16 win over Cornell up at Ithaca. In that game Ferrucci had a career high four goals and seven assists, but opposing attackmen were cutting up the Crimson defense like a stick of butter.

Oddly enough, however, it was the hot-and-cold defense that came to the rescue to give the Crimson its biggest win of the season. Four days after the Cornell game, Harvard fought off a fourth- quarter rally by No. 11 Brown (which had just beaten No. 3 Syracuse) to win 7-6. Lyng was outstanding in that game and Leary began to show signs that he was shaping up to be an excellent attackman as he netted two goals.

"This was a really good Brown team," Lyng said after the game. "Coming off that big win in Syracuse you know they're hot. So you've got to be just as hot and practice twice as hard. That's what we did and it really paid off."

Just when thoughts of NCAA bids began dancing like sugar plums in everyone's heads (beating a quality opponent like Brown always impresses the NCAA selection committee), the Crimson fell to a greatly superior Princeton team, 19-6. Losing to Princeton was no surprise, since the Tigers went on to win the National Championship by throttling Maryland in the finals.

But four days later, Harvard suffered a heartbreaking 12-6 loss to a good UMass team on April 16. Not only did the Crimson possibly ruin its final hope of making the tournament (there still remained a sliver of a chance), but it lost its leading scorer Ferrucci to a torn anterior cruciate ligament for the rest of the season.

But while the loss to UMass may have seemed like a low point at the time, the laxmen had an even deeper valley in which to fall. A subsequent 13-5 win over Yale was good morale booster--showcasing an impressive career-high three-goal, two-assist effort by senior attackman Max Von Zuben--but the Elis were not a top-ranked team.

Notre Dame was Harvard's crucial test against a quality opponent and a definite make-or-break game as far as the NCAAs were concerned. Unfortunately, "break" turned out to be the result. The Fighting Irish thrashed the Crimson, 13-5, down in Indiana, as Harvard's attackers simply could not figure out a way to crack Notre Dame's stingy defense.

"We probably have no chance at the tournament now," Jim Bevilacqua said following the devastating loss. "With the exception of the Brown game, we've had no big wins all year. For the rest of the season, we're just playing for pride."

Harvard had not yet finished its end-of-season collapse, however. On a rainy day in early May, the Crimson did the unspeakable, losing to perennial Ivy League cellar-dweller Dartmouth, a team it had almost always beaten in the past.

Dartmouth showed a greater desire to win than Harvard, and its tenacity was what allowed Big Green attackman Brian Merritt to break a tie with only five seconds remaining to stun the Crimson, 14-13. So much for going 5-1 in the Ivy League.

A massacre over woeful Vermont in Harvard's last game of the season could do little to repair the damage the sputtering Crimson had done in late April and early May. This season was terribly anticlimactic compared to Harvard's gallant march into the NCAAs last year.

A talented corps of recruits from the Class of 2001 is expected to join the Crimson's ranks, and the team will only lose a handful of its players to graduation. Next year's players will hopefully have the potential to erase this forgettable 1997 season and pick up where it left off in 1996

This combination was leading to some big-time offensive games that included an 18-16 win over Cornell up at Ithaca. In that game Ferrucci had a career high four goals and seven assists, but opposing attackmen were cutting up the Crimson defense like a stick of butter.

Oddly enough, however, it was the hot-and-cold defense that came to the rescue to give the Crimson its biggest win of the season. Four days after the Cornell game, Harvard fought off a fourth- quarter rally by No. 11 Brown (which had just beaten No. 3 Syracuse) to win 7-6. Lyng was outstanding in that game and Leary began to show signs that he was shaping up to be an excellent attackman as he netted two goals.

"This was a really good Brown team," Lyng said after the game. "Coming off that big win in Syracuse you know they're hot. So you've got to be just as hot and practice twice as hard. That's what we did and it really paid off."

Just when thoughts of NCAA bids began dancing like sugar plums in everyone's heads (beating a quality opponent like Brown always impresses the NCAA selection committee), the Crimson fell to a greatly superior Princeton team, 19-6. Losing to Princeton was no surprise, since the Tigers went on to win the National Championship by throttling Maryland in the finals.

But four days later, Harvard suffered a heartbreaking 12-6 loss to a good UMass team on April 16. Not only did the Crimson possibly ruin its final hope of making the tournament (there still remained a sliver of a chance), but it lost its leading scorer Ferrucci to a torn anterior cruciate ligament for the rest of the season.

But while the loss to UMass may have seemed like a low point at the time, the laxmen had an even deeper valley in which to fall. A subsequent 13-5 win over Yale was good morale booster--showcasing an impressive career-high three-goal, two-assist effort by senior attackman Max Von Zuben--but the Elis were not a top-ranked team.

Notre Dame was Harvard's crucial test against a quality opponent and a definite make-or-break game as far as the NCAAs were concerned. Unfortunately, "break" turned out to be the result. The Fighting Irish thrashed the Crimson, 13-5, down in Indiana, as Harvard's attackers simply could not figure out a way to crack Notre Dame's stingy defense.

"We probably have no chance at the tournament now," Jim Bevilacqua said following the devastating loss. "With the exception of the Brown game, we've had no big wins all year. For the rest of the season, we're just playing for pride."

Harvard had not yet finished its end-of-season collapse, however. On a rainy day in early May, the Crimson did the unspeakable, losing to perennial Ivy League cellar-dweller Dartmouth, a team it had almost always beaten in the past.

Dartmouth showed a greater desire to win than Harvard, and its tenacity was what allowed Big Green attackman Brian Merritt to break a tie with only five seconds remaining to stun the Crimson, 14-13. So much for going 5-1 in the Ivy League.

A massacre over woeful Vermont in Harvard's last game of the season could do little to repair the damage the sputtering Crimson had done in late April and early May. This season was terribly anticlimactic compared to Harvard's gallant march into the NCAAs last year.

A talented corps of recruits from the Class of 2001 is expected to join the Crimson's ranks, and the team will only lose a handful of its players to graduation. Next year's players will hopefully have the potential to erase this forgettable 1997 season and pick up where it left off in 1996