Strong Gusts, Sloppy Field Make for a Long Afternoon

Playing in Cambridge, the Harvard men’s soccer team is used to facing all the elements that nature has in its back pocket.

Against Brown (8-3-1, 3-0-0) yesterday, the Crimson (4-6-1, 0-3-0 Ivy) played with a strategy aimed towards taming the strong gusts of up to 40 mph, but ultimately fell short in its fight against the wind and Bears 3-0.

The weather forecast for the day described the wind as 25 mph with gusts possibly reaching higher, and at Ohiri Field these ran parallel to the length of the field.

Harvard opened the first half with the wind at its back and looked to take advantage by putting the ball up into the air and forward as much as possible.

This strategy proved hard to implement, however, because of the muddiness of the field after a week of rain and an earlier game played by the women’s soccer team.

“The middle of the field and really the whole field in general was just in terrible condition,” captain Will Craig said. “It was a difficult day to try to play on the ground and play pretty soccer.”

Brown also struggled making its offense click upwind as most of its balls were blown array by the wind. In fact, a couple of goal kicks and punts from freshman goalie Jarret Leech simply were blown out of bounds before they even reached the midline.

Despite the Crimson’s obvious advantage that helped it get a number of early chances to catch the Bears struggling to adapt to the conditions, in the end Brown captured the upwind break to go up 1-0.

“The strategy in the first half was try to get it in behind them as quickly as we could and when we did that in the first 30 minutes I thought we played well,” Harvard coach John Kerr said. “What we didn’t do is take advantage of some of the pressure that we had on them and some of the scrambles that we had in front of the net.”

When the two teams switched sides after halftime, the Crimson learned what the Bears had faced in the first half as it struggled to continue its offensive flow against the wind.

As the game advanced, Brown was able to accomplish what Harvard could not when it not only used the wind to begin its runs, but then used quick dribbles and attentive offensive play to score two more on the Crimson.

BEAR MARKET

To date, Brown has been nothing short of unstoppable in Ivy play.

All it takes is a look at the statistics they have amassed to prove this fact.

The Bears not only sit atop the conference standings with their 3-0 record overall, but they also lead the Ivy League in almost every offensive and defensive statistical category.

In goals per game, Brown’s mark of two goals per game—adding three in handily defeating the Crimson—is the best. To back up that offensive domination, the Bears manage 7.10 shots on goal per game to pester opposing goalies into submission, including eight on Harvard goalie Ryan Johnson yesterday.

Finally, their 0.6 goals allowed mark—again bettered by their dominating shutout of the Crimson—is leaps and bounds above the rest of the league.

“[Brown] has a certain style and it works for them,” Kerr said. “It’s not the most attractive style to watch but it’s very effective. They have this great work ethic and they have a certain way of playing. They are smart and well coached.”

A pair of freshmen sensations has led the Bears this season and should remain a potent force for years to come.

Rookie Scott Geppert, who scored the game winner yesterday, now is tied for the team lead in goals with four—three of them of the game-deciding variety.

On the other end of the field, Leech has been a brick wall as he has a 4-0-1 mark with three shutouts to his name. Meanwhile, his goals against average has fallen below 0.25 to make him the best keeper in the Ivies.

“From top to bottom in their lineup they have solid players,” Craig said. “They are the team I think will take the title and they are probably the standard in the league right now.”

AROUND THE IVIES

Water played havoc up and down the Northeast this weekend, and almost every Ivy game was affected.

The game between Columbia and Princeton—the two other 0-2 teams sitting at the bottom of the conference with Harvard—was postponed due to heavy rain.

As with the Crimson’s quandary on Ohiri Field, Yale had to postpone its contest against Cornell to yesterday.

Unlike with Harvard, the Bulldogs held serve at home by handing the Big Red its first Ivy loss of the season. In the 2-0 victory, Yale’s Alex Munns scored two goals and put himself amongst the league leaders in that category.

Elsewhere, Penn broke Dartmouth’s four-game shutout streak by notching a goal with just over one minute left in double overtime. With the win, the Quakers brought themselves even with the Big Green at 2-1 in Ivy play, and redeemed their Ivy season-opening loss last weekend to Cornell.

With Dartmouth and the Big Red losing, Brown remains the only unbeaten team at 3-0, although nationally-ranked Penn and four others sit nipping at its heels in second place.

—Staff writer Gabriel M. Velez can be reached at gmvelez@fas.harvard.edu.