Shooting Barrage Can’t Give M. Lacrosse Win

This Saturday, the No. 20 Harvard men’s lacrosse team learned an important lesson: even if you outshoot an opponent by a 2 to 1 margin, it doesn’t matter if you can’t get one in.

The Crimson (2-1) faced off against Fairfield (3-2) in its first away game of the season and dropped the contest 7-6 due to an impressive showing by the Stags.

“Their goalie played very well,” tri-captain midfielder Doug Kocis said. “It’s a combination of that and us shooting very poorly. When you shoot 40 shots, you need to score more than six goals.”

Harvard was especially frustrated by defeat after creating many scoring opportunities for themselves during the entire game.

“They were definitely a little more excited for the game than we were,” tri-captain defender Brian Wannop said. “It’s a game we probably should have won.”

The Crimson outshot the Stags 24-11 in the second half alone, but Fairfield goalie Michael Kruger was virtually impenetrable.

“We took some bad outside shots that were easily blocked by their goalie,” Wannop said. “As the game went on, we were rushing and taking poor shots.”

Kruger ended up making four of his 20 saves for the game in the last two minutes of play as Harvard tried to stay alive.

The Stags committed a turnover with 30 seconds left in the fourth period, allowing the Crimson one last chance to tie the game and bring it into overtime. But following the trend of the rest of the game, Kruger made an impressive save against freshman attackman Zach Widbin, who tried for the goal.

“I don’t think anybody thought that we weren’t going to score because we had four or five shots in the last two minutes,” Wannop said. “But their goalie came up huge and we just got unlucky in our shots.”

Harvard had to play catch-up almost immediately out of the gate as it was only able to take the lead once.

The only time the Crimson was able to go ahead in the game was when it went on a three-goal streak in the first period.

Fairfield had already started out strong, with a goal only eight seconds into the game, and followed with another at 13:52 in the period to nudge the score to 2-0.

“They came out right off the bat and scored and it caught us off guard a little bit,” Kocis said. “The whole first half, we were playing catch-up. With a team like [the Stags] if you keep them hanging around they are eventually going to score and put the pressure on you.”

But Harvard was not about to let Fairfield dominate the field, as the Crimson came back late in the first period.

Sophomore midfielder Brian Mahler opened up the scoring for Harvard with an unassisted goal at 5:56 in the period.

Next came two impressive plays by Widbin, as he set up sophomore midfielder Evan Calvert to tie the score at 2-2, and then went on to score a goal of his own with only 1:18 left in the first to give the Crimson its first and only lead of the game, 3-2.

The lead held up throughout the beginning of the second period until the Stags started a three-goal streak of their own, scoring the only goal of the second period at 8:46 to knot the game at three.

“[Fairfield] have always been tough competitors,” Kocis said. “We expected them to come out fired up to get back at us from last year. We didn’t play our ‘A’ game.”

The Stags opened the third period with a goal only 1:46 in. Fairfield would not score again until 4:00 in the period to bring the score to 5-3, but when they did, it opened the gate for a rush of goals in the last minute of the period.

Harvard was able once again to retaliate, notching back-to-back tallies. Freshman attackman Brooks Scholl was a major part of the rally, with a hand in both goals. Scholl had an unassisted tally at 1:13 in the period, and then went on to feed the ball to junior attackman Steve Cohen, who hit the goal with 40 seconds left in the third to once again tie the score at 5-5.

But the Crimson couldn’t keep the momentum, as the Stags came back to score with one second left in the third period to take a 6-5 advantage.

The fourth period remained scoreless until Harvard was able to come back and make one last effort when junior attackman Sean Kane found the net with 5:52 remaining to re-knot the score.

But Fairfield was able to take advantage of a power-play opportunity as a penalty for tripping was called at 4:48 in the period.

“We had a man-down situation so that put us down by one,” Kocis said. “We were determined to step it up at the end and we did everything we needed to but putting the ball into the net. We just didn’t get it done.”

It was only the Stags’ second man-up opportunity, but they were able to convert it to a game-winning goal by Greg Downing with 4:14 left to play.

After this tough loss, the Crimson will go on to face Penn on Saturday in its first Ivy game of the season. Harvard will have to brush off this weekend’s loss and focus on what lies ahead, beginning with the crucial battle with the Quakers.

“The Ivy season is a whole new season,” Wannop said. “You will see a different team and a different outcome on Saturday.”

—Staff writer Abigail M. Baird can be reached at ambaird@fas.harvard.edu.