M. Lacrosse Continues Slide With a 9-7 Loss

The Harvard men's lacrosse team dropped its third straight game in a 9-7 loss to Yale Saturday night under the lights at Jordan Field.

Harvard (6-6, 1-4 Ivy) fell behind early and was unable to recover against the Elis (6-6, 3-3 Ivy).

Yale opened the scoring at the 3:38 mark of the first period when Ryan Floyd scored the first of his two goals on the night, the second coming just under two minutes later.

The Crimson defense had trouble controlling the Eli attack, and Blake Beachler extended the Yale lead to 5-0 at the 11:05 mark of the first quarter.

"We didn't possess the ball well in the first period. They won the face-offs and loose balls," co-captain Dana Sprong said.

Harvard finally got on the board at the end of the first frame when sophomore attackman Jay Wich notched a goal on an assist from Roger Buttles, the first of his four assists on the night.

The Crimson stuck twice at the beginning of the second frame with goals from junior midfielder Mike Baly and junior midfielder Doug Logigian.

Tucker Foote beat Crimson goaltender Jake McKenna to extend Yale's lead to 6-3 just before the half.

Just as Yale struck early in beginning of the first period, things would repeat themselves at the beginning of the second half.

Yale quickly tallied two goals to extend its lead to 8-3 just five minutes into the third frame.

Sprong helped close the gap with a goal at the ten-minute mark in the third period to close the scoring for that frame.

In the fourth quarter, Harvard turned the tables on Yale with an early goal of its own. Logigian netted his second goal of the game at 1:26.

Then, in the span of one minute, back-to-back goals from Sprong and Joe Neiman pulled the Crimson to within one with just over five minutes to play.

But Harvard would not get any closer. A goal from Marco Lujic in the final minute sealed the victory for Yale.

"We played much better in the second half," Sprong said. "We eliminated mistakes and played a lot harder."

With the exception of the first period, Harvard outshot the Elis almost two to one in every frame, and ended the game with a 51-28 shot advantage.

Still, the Elis held the Crimson to just seven goals.

"They used an adjacent slide package and we haven't seen that much this year," Sprong said. "But we've had problems scoring goals all year."

Yale goaltender Adam Oppenheimer was solid with 12 saves on the night, while McKenna finished with eight saves for the Crimson.

Despite the loss there was an individual accomplishment to recognize. Buttles fourth assist of the night on Logigian's fourth quarter goal was his 100th career point. He is just the 27th player in school history to reach that mark.

The game was the last on Jordan Field for the Crimson this season.

Harvard has a week to prepare for fifth-ranked Notre Dame next Saturday in South Bend.

"We just need to play hard and good things will happen," Sprong said.

The Crimson will finish the season on the road with games against Colgate and Dartmouth during the first week in May.