Victory Sets up Battle With Brown

Beautiful weather and a weak opponent made for a very pleasant Saturday afternoon for the Harvard men’s soccer team. The Crimson (5-3, 2-0 Ivy) cruised to a 2-0 victory against Cornell with goals from seniors Mike Fucito and John Stamatis.

The win sends Harvard into next weekend’s showdown at defending Ivy champion Brown undefeated in league play.

“It’s a tough one mentally, coming off the rivalry game against Yale and then having the game against Brown coming up next week,” Harvard coach Jamie Clark said of the Cornell match. “But we still managed to focus and go about the job at hand.”

The Big Red (1-8, 0-2), who came into the game having been outscored 21-5, proved no match for the Crimson. Co-captain Fucito opened the scoring in the 26th minute with a beautiful left-footed strike, and after Stamatis made it 2-0 right after halftime, Cornell never really threatened to get back into the match. Harvard coasted to the win in what was an uneventful last 30 minutes.

“I think that we did really well in spurts,” Stamatis said. “We are still not in a place where we are really dominating whole games and are putting teams under pressure consistently, but we are getting there.”

The Crimson has now kept its opponent scoreless in its last two games, and the tight defensive effort was instrumental in gaining the win Saturday. Freshman keeper Austin Harms made a couple of crucial saves, including one right before half on a shot that would have evened the score. Harms started his first match for the team last weekend against Yale and has now kept two consecutive clean sheets to open his collegiate career. Harvard has also been helped by junior centerback Kwaku Nyamekye’s return to fitness.

“We are locking it down at the back,” said co-captain Luke Sager, another key member of the defensive unit. “With Austin and Kwaku, we are starting to get used to playing together.”

Adding further protection, junior Brian Grimm has taken up the holding midfield role and helped the Crimson to control the play Saturday.

“I think that’s the hardest anyone’s worked all season,” Stamatis said of Grimm’s performance.

On paper, Harvard was the superior team, and once the game started, it was clear that a surprise result was unlikely. After dominating possession in the opening exchanges, the Crimson began to create chances about 15 minutes into the match. Grimm sent a rocket just over the bar from 40 yards out, and then five minutes later Sager got a little closer, hitting the post on another long-range effort.

Harvard did not give up on the strikes from distance, however, and it paid off in the 26th minute. Fucito received the ball 25 yards out and curled it with his left foot into the top corner to give the Crimson a well-deserved lead.

Harvard came out in the second half looking to put away Cornell and found itself up 2-0 just minutes in. A long throw from the right side found the head of junior Andre Akpan in the box. Akpan flicked the ball into the path of Stamatis, who nestled it into the bottom left corner.

Two minutes later Akpan missed a golden opportunity to put the Crimson three goals up when he volleyed over from eight yards out. Despite not getting onto the scoresheet, Akpan was central in all of Harvard’s attacks, winning the ball in the air and holding up play.

The Crimson seemed to ease off in the last part of the match and came away with the 2-0 win. The team was pleased with the result, but hoped for a greater margin of victory against a struggling side.

“We played well at the start of both halves but fell off a little bit,” senior Michael Giammanco said.

“The last two games are games that we could have and should have put away,” Clark said. “We should have made them comfortable games. 1-0 and 2-0 are not comfortable. We need to start being more opportunistic and make better use of the chances we are getting.”

Harvard will need to begin to take some more of those chances Saturday night against Brown.

—Staff writer Jay M. Cohen can be reached at jaycohen@fas.harvard.edu.