Men's Soccer Comes Up Empty in California

It was a rough weekend for the Harvard men's soccer team at the Stanford Invitational in Palo Alto.

On Friday night, the Crimson fell 1-0 to the host Cardinal (4-2-1). Then on yesterday afternoon, Harvard (2-5-1, 1-1 Ivy) was soundly defeated 3-0 by the No. 20 ranked California Golden Bears

(7-1-1).

Harvard continued to be overmatched by its non-conference opponents. Despite these two losses, the Crimson remains in the hunt for the Ivy League title. With its only conference loss thus far to No. 22 Yale, the team remains optimistic about its chances.

Stanford 1, Harvard 0

Harvard began its trip to California with a Friday night matchup against Stanford on the Cardinal home turf of Palo Alto. Despite potential jet lag as well as the hostile crowd, the Crimson put forth one of its best efforts of the season, hanging tough with the Cardinal for the entire match.

Harvard appeared to have a chance to come away from the Stanford game with at least a tie, even though--led by T.K. Inbody (7 shots)--Stanford dominated every aspect of the game. The Cardinal kept the ball in the Crimson end for most of the match, as it outshot Harvard 26-6 taking 16 corner kicks as compared to three for Harvard.

The story, however, was the spectacular play of sophomore goalkeeper Mike Meagher. Meagher stopped eleven Cardinal shots to keep the game close for Harvard.

Senior midfielder Armando Petruccelli and senior forward Will Hench led the Crimson offensive attack with two shots on goal apiece.

But the bubble finally burst for Harvard in the 87th minute, as Cardinal defenseman Lee Morrison, on a pass from Luke Rust, beat Meagher to put the Cardinals up 1-0 for good.

The disappointing loss marked the second time this year that the Crimson has lost a game after being tied going into the final five minutes.

UC-Berkeley 3, Harvard 0

Yesterday afternoon, in the second round of the Stanford Invitational, Harvard faced a tougher opponent in the No. 20 UC-Berkeley Golden Bears. The Crimson had faced difficult competition before this year from former No. 1 Creighton and then No. 8 Yale. However, the young Crimson team appeared to be seriously overmatched against the Golden Bears.

The match against UC-Berkeley was not nearly as close as Friday's matchup against Stanford. UC-Berkeley goaltender Doug Brooks had a dull afternoon in goal, as Harvard was unable to place a single shot on net in ninety minutes of play.

Harvard kept the match scoreless for most of the first half, but was unable to handle the pressure from the UC-Berkeley attack.

The Golden Bears jumped on top in the 26th minute, when Ramiro Arredondo scored on a direct kick from 20 yards away, to give UC-Berkeley a 1-0 lead going into the intermission.

The Golden Bears then put the game away early in the second half. Seven minutes after the break, Chris Sawicki kicked in a header cross to make the score 2-0.

The Crimson was unable to keep its focus after the Golden Bears doubled their lead. Just 18 seconds later, UC-Berkeley scored again. Assisted by Chris Roner and Kendall Simmonds, John Macdonald beat Meagher to the left, making the score 3-0 for the Golden Bears victory.

Coming off of his magnificent performance on Friday, Meagher was not nearly as spectacular against the UC-Berkeley. He stopped five shots, but it wasn't enough to save Harvard. Meagher was pulled with eight minutes left to give freshman backup Don Mejias some playing time.

For the contest, Harvard was outshot 17-2, with its two shots coming from Petruccelli and sophomore forward Jon Oslowski. But even with these shots, the Crimson did not have a decent scoring chance the entire game. Both of the shots missed the net, and the team did not manage a single corner kick.

Notes

Despite its lost weekend in California, the men's soccer team looks to bounce back when it returns to Ivy League play next Saturday. Harvard will head to Ithaca to take on Cornell, which is fresh off of a huge upset victory over nationally ranked Brown this past weekend. The Crimson will look to build on its non-conference game experience when it faces its league opponents.