M. Soccer Looks to Snap Cornell's Shutout Streak

Coming back from California to the rapidly cooling climate of Cambridge is always a bummer.

Facing one of the top defensive teams in the Ivy League makes it worse.

Yet, tomorrow the Harvard men's soccer team returns to action against Cornell (5-3, 2-1 Ivy) after dropping both of its matches at the Stanford Invitational last weekend. The Big Red has not allowed a goal in its past four games and hopes to make it a school record fifth straight game with a shutout against the Crimson (2-5-1, 1-1).

The Big Red defense has made it a relatively easy task for senior goaltender Dan Demaine to post clean sheets. During its amazing streak, shutout victims Colgate, Penn, Farleigh Dickinson, and No. 17 Brown, have attempted just nine shots, only three of which Demaine had to stop.

Cornell's 1-0 overtime win over Brown, a top-25 team, certainly proves that the streak is no fluke

Demaine has lowered his GAA to a miserly .360 and has a .909 save percentage.

Cornell will get its fifth straight shutout if the Crimson attack continues to sputter. Harvard did not manage a single goal in its trip to the Left Coast, getting blanked by Stanford, 1-0, and by No. 20 Cal-Berkeley, 3-0.

With a floundering offense, Harvard has dropped three of its past four games, with No. 8 Yale forcing the other goose-egg, 3-0 on Sept. 25.

Harvard will need to perform as it did against Northeastern, winning 3-2 on a late header by freshman midfielder Mike Peller.

In that game, the Crimson received tremendous contributions from its underclassmen. Sophomores Nick Lenicheck, a midfielder, Jonathan Oslowski, a forward, and freshman forward Joe Steffa keyed Harvard's offense along with seniors Will Hench and Armando Petruccelli.

In the absence of junior captain Ryan Kelly, who has missed the past four games with a broken hand, Hench and Petruccelli have shown that despite their prodigious talent, they cannot shoulder the burden alone.

If the Crimson can break through the Cornell defense, however, it should have a good chance of making the strike stand up for a victory.

While the Big Red defense has smothered its opponents, the offense has scored the bare minimum needed to earn the win.

Three of its four wins were by a 1-0 score, and it bested Penn by the whopping score of 2-0.

Harvard has proven to have a steady defense, aided by the return of junior Matt Edwards. Freshman back Mike Lobach has also turned in stellar performances in the backfield.

Stanford, a team with a couple preseason All-Americans, didn't manage the deciding goal against the Crimson until the 87th minute.

If both team's defenses hold up, this should prove a low scoring match, where one goal may prove decisive.

There's no better cure for the Boston blues than having that strike come from a Crimson foot, placing a red X through Cornell's shutout streak.