Historic Game Brings Fourth-Straight Crimson Loss

More than 2,700 fans gathered to watch Harvard men’s lacrosse host No. 8 Cornell at the first-ever lacrosse game played at Gillette Stadium, but the change of venue did nothing to help the struggling Crimson (4-5, 0-2 Ivy), as the Big Red (8-1, 3-0) took the win, 11-7.

Though Harvard struck first, possession woes and four forgettable minutes in the second quarter sank the young team, as the first half belonged to the Big Red.

With his team down 3-1 at the end of the first, junior goalie Joe Pike found himself one-on-one with one of Cornell’s top scorers alone just outside the crease. The junior made an incredible save to preserve the two-goal deficit and give his team a bit of momentum entering the second quarter.

“It’s pretty rare that you’d ever see someone break away, have that much time and not score,” Harvard coach John Tillman said. “That’s something that you probably won’t see again.”

But the momentum didn’t carry over, as just seven minutes into the second frame the Crimson faced a 7-1 deficit.

Much of the scoring came at the hands of sophomore Ryan Hurley, who entered the game with a dominant 3.13 goals per game average. The sophomore used a four-minute Harvard lapse to add to his total, finishing with five goals and an assist on the day.

“I think a lot of his goals come off of ball movement and a lot of times other people’s dodges,” Harvard coach John Tillman said. “So you really couldn’t be focused on just one particular guy, you had to kind of watch patterns. They do a very good job of making sure the ball is spread around and so all six guys are pretty dangerous and can hurt you at any time.”

Cornell entered the locker rooms with an 8-2 advantage after eight unanswered goals, but a statistically even first half.

The teams were neck-and-neck on paper—18-15 in shots, 16-14 in groundballs, and 5-5 in saves in favor of the Big Red. The same could be said of the game as a whole—33-32 in shots, 33-27 in groundballs, and 10-8 in saves.

“I feel like in the first half we were just tentative for whatever reason—that we were playing here at Gillette Stadium or against Cornell who we haven’t beat in a while,” tri-captain Brooks Scholl said.

The venue only heightened the drama in an already charged matchup and provided a turf easier to maneuver.

“It was definitely a once in a lifetime experience,” Scholl said. “We came yesterday and kind of got that ‘ooh and ahh’ out of us—that was something coach wanted to do. It was hard. It was a good experience. It’s obviously a great venue to play in, and certainly everyone was excited to do so.”

“It’s actually 27 percent grass and that really helped out with our footing and stuff like that,” Cornell goalie Jake Myers said.

The Crimson regrouped in the second half to play at its own tempo, going on a 4-0 tear to end the game.

“The last probably 22 minutes Harvard really controlled the pace,” Cornell coach Jeff Tambroni said. “Their offense certainly started to make some plays in the third and fourth quarter to make it the game it was, which was a highly contested game overall.”

But it was too little too late, as Harvard simply ran out of time in its comeback bid to fall, 11-7.

Junior midfielder Max Motschwiller and senior midfielder Zach Widbin led the way with two goals apiece, and freshman attacker Dean Gibbons paced the offense with four points on a goal and three assists.

“I feel like I’m finally getting used to college paced lacrosse,” Gibbons said. “It’s a lot faster than high school. It’s not really what I’m doing—the guys are making it easy for me, so its not really me, it’s just them.”

But on a day when the offense needed to be nearly perfect to match a Cornell offense that had significantly greater possession time, the Crimson couldn’t come up with any answers, in part due to a stifling Big Red defense.

Cornell’s game-long strategy had a focused objective—suffocate sophomore midfielder and leading scorer Jason Duboe.

“Definitely, he was certainly our number one matchup today,” Tambroni said. “He’s just so athletic and every time he touches the ball he’s capable of getting to the goal both left hand and right hand. So we knew that if we were going to allow him to handle the ball we tried to make sure he was as far away from the goal as possible. For such a young kid he’s such a talented player and as only a sophomore he’s only going to get better. He’s a tall order and one of our priorities to our game plan today.”

But in order for the team to regroup and get back on track next Saturday against No. 15 Princeton at Harvard Stadium, it will have to use some of that second-half resurgence to carry momentum and figure out how to work around Duboe.

“Jason’s a guy who a lot of people are going to focus on,” Tillman said. “We’ve got to be good enough around him so if they pay a lot of attention to him the other guys step up and we can play well together.”

—Staff writer Elizabeth A. Joyce can be reached at eajoyce@fas.harvard.edu.