Harvard’s Upset Bid Falls Short

In an upset-filled month, the Harvard men’s lacrosse team produced a bid of its own. The team took an early 2-0 lead, but No. 2 Duke (9-1) proved why it’s one of the top teams in the country, scoring 10 unanswered goals to beat the Crimson (4-3), 10-3, in Durham, N.C. last Tuesday.

Down 2-1 in a man up situation with 5:16 to go in the second period, Blue Devil and 2007 national player of the year Matt Danowski found the back of the net on an assist from teammate Zack Greer. The score opened the floodgates as the second of the 10 unanswered goals.

“They have the ability to do that because they’re very experienced, very dynamic players,” Harvard coach John Tillman said. “They’ve all been playing together for a long time. They disrupt you with the way they play. It was funny because it was 10 in a row but it was a kind of gradual scoring.”

Duke would score two more in the final five minutes of the half—both on assists from Danowski, who contributed six points on the day—with 4:21 and 2:14 left to go into the locker room with a 4-2 lead.

Junior goalie Joe Pike made 10 saves in the first half, five in each of the opening frames, but he was simply overwhelmed by Duke’s 21 first-half shots—he let in three goals in the second after a one-score first.

“He came up with some great saves and he was seeing the ball really well,” Junior Nick Sapia said. “He makes those saves look easy. He’s playing so well for us and it’s a huge help.”

“Joe was probably the reason we had a chance to hang in there and win the game,” Tillman said. “He really played well, saw the ball well, had a great presence. He’s the guy that really rose to the challenge.”

Coming out of the break the cushion was far from insurmountable for the Crimson, a team that has been known for its third-period outbursts over the opening games of the season. But Danowski added another tally just 1:10 into the third period, continuing the Blue Devils’ offensive onslaught. Duke wasn’t done, contributing two more in the third before its third consecutive three-goal period in the fourth. Sapia added a late tally with just under three minutes left, but it was too little, too late as the Blue Devils hung on for the 10-3 victory.

“If you look at what Duke did to the rest of the ACC, they’ve been crushing people,” Tillman said. “Being up as early as we were, if we hit a couple of shots, we’d have been close in the third quarter. We got a great defensive effort, that is what’s disappointing, not getting enough goals...Like any coach in America, you want both.”

Harvard’s quick start featured sophomore attacker Jesse Fehr finding the back of the net on a pass from senior midfielder Zach Widbin 4:43 into the game. Sophomore midfielder Jason Duboe added another tally just over four minutes later to give the Crimson the early 2-0 lead. But those were the only signs of offensive life Harvard saw for over 45 minutes.

With 2:49 left in the first frame Blue Devil Ned Crotty found the back of the net and kicked off his team’s scoring.

Duke outshot the Crimson 37-20 for the game and had 39 ground balls to Harvard’s 21.

“Duke was able to control the game and I think on faceoffs their wing play was stronger than ours at times,” Tillman said. “They do a good job of getting the ground balls. There’s usually a strong correlation between ground balls and the score.”

—Staff writer Madeleine I. Shapiro can be reached at mshapiro@fas.harvard.edu.