M. Lax Overcomes Brown in Home Shootout 12-6

Even though the Brown men’s lacrosse team came within a goal of upsetting No. 3 Georgetown last Saturday, they could not even touch Harvard last night as the Crimson handed the Bears a 12-6 defeat at Jordan Field.

The victory is the first Ivy win for Harvard (4-5, 1-2 Ivy), breaking a two game losing streak and extending the Bears’ (2-7, 0-2) own skid to six games.

The league win is not the only first for the Crimson. Sophomore midfielder David Patterson scored his first career goal and freshman midfielder Sean Kane picked up his first hat trick, with two of his goals coming unassisted.

“Sean is a fantastic athlete,” said tri-captain and attack Matt Primm (two goals, two assists). “He just came out today, played his heart out and got some great goals for us when we really needed them. I thought he had a terrific game.”

Harvard came out firing last night, opening the game with five unanswered and unassisted goals before Brown finally got on the board with 9:33 left in the second quarter. Though the Bears scored again just three minutes later to make the score 5-2, this was the closest they would ever come to closing in on the Crimson lead.

After a Primm score off of a failed Brown clear, the two teams traded goals twice to make the score 8-4. But Harvard pulled ahead once again with a three goal run to put the game out of reach at 11-4 with 9:08 remaining.

“Brown was a team we could suck out a lot,” said tri-captain midfielder Doug Logigian (two goals). “So once we dodged down one side, we would look to the backside, and if the guy was coming hard, he could take it right to the goal.”

But perhaps more impressive than Harvard’s ability to spread around its scoring opportunities—eight players found the back of the net—was its ability to shut down Brown’s star attack, tri-captain Jon Thompson. Thompson currently leads the Ancient Eight in scoring (3.25 goals per game) and notched seven goals in the Bears’ weekend loss to the Hoyas—the No. 1 defense in the country—the most goals scored by an Ivy Leaguer in two years.

But against the Crimson’s back three, led by tri-captain Andrew Crocco—who marked Thompson for most of the evening—Thompson only had one goal and two assists.

“Coming in we knew he was their big gun, so we tried to key off of him and make sure their offense couldn’t get going,” said Primm. “Normally guys don’t try to dodge against Andrew, but this guy really wanted to take him, but Andrew did a great job of shutting him down.”

But though Thompson was a problem for the Harvard D, the squad put itself in an even more difficult situation with 7:55 remaining in the game. Junior Spencer Stenmark recieved two slashing penalties and classmate Hani Malone was issued one after the two repeatedly hit Brown attack Chazz Woodson in the head, prompting the officials to throw all six of their flags on to the field and award the Bears a two-man advantage.

Though the Crimson managed to hold off Brown during the four-on-six, but the Bears’ Brian Miller score just seconds into the five-on-six situation.

“Our defense was playing pretty tough, and after one flag went down he still didn’t drop the ball,” said tri-captain midfielder Doug Logigian, who chipped in with two goals. “So our guys kept on hitting him till he dropped the ball. They really wanted that ball on the ground.”

After the play, a frustrated Woodson threw his broken stick on to the field, and did not seem to appreciate Stenmark’s kind gesture when he handed Woodson his broken shaft, who ripped it out of the Crimson long-pole’s hand.

On Saturday, Harvard will travel to New Jersey to take on No. 2 Princeton (6-2, 2-0) at 1 p.m. Currently on a six game winning streak, the Tigers have already avenged their loss to No. 4 Syracuse in the National Championships last year, 11-10 at Syracuse.

Princeton also defeated Penn 12-6 last Tuesday, a team Harvard lost to 8-6 over Spring Break.

—Staff writer Evan R. Johnson can be reached at erjohns@fas.harvard.edu.