Crimson Men Fight to Scoreless Draw with No. 15 Bears

It was a busy Saturday night for the Harvard men’s soccer team as a strong Brown contingent gave the Crimson a handful of troubles.

Harvard (4-3-5, 1-0-2 Ivy) escaped Providence, R.I. with a 0-0 draw despite being outshot by the No. 15 Bears (7-1-3, 1-1-1 Ivy), 25-6. Junior goalkeeper Austin Harms was forced to bail out the Crimson six times throughout the night while rival goalie Paul Grandstand had a relatively effortless outing, having only one save in the game.

“I thought the first 15 minutes we were very dangerous, and we could have gone ahead one- or two-nothing,” Harvard coach Carl Junot said. “But there was nearly a 60-minute stretch where if one of the teams was going to score, it was going to be Brown.”

The hosts came out running, testing Harms right away in the first 23 minutes of the game. The Bears clawed at the goal with seven shots, two of which were on net, but Harms denied Brown to keep his team in the game. Bears forward Sean Rosa had a great look with 22:26 already played when he let out a rocket towards the bottom right corner of the goal, but Harms dove to keep it out.

Rosa and Brown midfielders Thomas McNamara and Taylor Gorman each had five shots on the night, with one shot on target apiece.

“I do remember one or two shots from Brown that did attack our goal, but I thought that we were able to possess the ball in our defensive half of the field,” Junot said. “We also had some very dangerous opportunities, and out of the dangerous opportunities that could have been goals, they were much more clearly in our favor in the first 15-20 minutes of the game.”

The Bears kept the pressure on the Crimson with a flurry of shots in the first half—Brown had 11 shots to Harvard’s three. The second half was even more ineffective, as the Crimson attack only got off one shot while the Bears had 10 times as many.

Before the half ended, Harvard took one of its five corner kicks for the game that freshman midfielder Obiajulu Agha almost converted, but his header sailed away from the goal.

On the game, Brown had seven corner kicks, keeping the Harvard back line alert at all times.

The second half started slowly for both teams, with the first shot on goal coming 15 minutes into the period. Once again it was Rosa who threatened the Crimson goal, but Harms was there, ready to keep the ball from entering the net.

At the 69:23 mark, another shot on goal forced Harms to make a save, and six minutes later, the junior easily collected another ball.

This time around, Harms was instrumental in creating Harvard’s lone on-target shot of the game, as the ball he sent up the field found the foot of junior Jamie Rees, who shot the ball at Grandstand. Grandstand had very little trouble stopping the shot with 15 minutes left to play.

After 90 minutes of play and no goals, the game went into two overtime periods that were held scoreless. It was actually the Crimson that came out this time with the intention of finishing off the game, creating two opportunities that scared the Bears.

Two defenders were important in the cause. At 93:38, junior Tim Linden had a shot that flew over the crossbar and six minutes later, sophomore Richard Smith had a header off a corner taken by sophomore Scott Prozeller that missed wide.

Brown put an end to its lapse in the second overtime period, dominating Harvard with four shots, the last of which was saved by Harms with two minutes remaining.

“We played well defensively, and Brown is a tough place to play,” said sophomore Brian Rogers in his first game back from injury. “We would like to get a win at some point. We need to start getting wins if we want to win the Ivy League, but this doesn’t kill us.”

—Staff writer Brian A. Campos can be reached at bcampos@fas.harvard.edu.