Postseason Bid on the Line Against Yale

Win and they’re in.

It’s as simple as that for the members of the No. 19 Harvard men’s lacrosse team, which closes out its regular season tomorrow afternoon with a must-win game at archrival No. 17 Yale, where a spot in the first-ever Ivy League tournament will be on the line.

Only four conference teams will qualify for the Ivy tournament, the winner of which will gain an automatic spot in the 16-team NCAA tournament.

For the Crimson (6-5, 2-3 Ivy) and the Bulldogs (9-2, 3-2), a defeat tomorrow—barring an at-large bid for either team—would dash all hopes of playing in the postseason.

“It’s the most important game we’ll play all year,” co-captain Jason Duboe said. “A lot of emotion will definitely come out on both sides.”

The Bulldogs are coming off a home loss to Bryant but can still clinch a share of the Ivy title with a win combined with a Princeton loss.

After keeping their tournament hopes alive by upsetting the No. 6 Tigers last weekend, Harvard will need an equally strong performance if it is to put together its first winning streak since mid-March and earn a spot in the Ancient Eight tournament.

Much of that burden will fall on Harry Krieger, the Crimson’s inconsistent freshman goaltender, who will need to repeat a strong performance against the Tigers in which he only gave up seven goals.

Krieger will be going up against a Bulldog offense that is fifth in the Ivy with 10.50 goals per game and fifth in shot percentage at .292.

The Yale attack is led by junior Brian Douglass and sophomore Matt Gibson. Douglass ranks third in the conference with 29 goals, while Gibson is third in points per game.

Senior Brendan Gibson has contributed 31 points as well.

For both teams, offensive production this season has been a study in contrasts.

The Bulldogs have outscored their opponents in the first quarter 36-22, but they have been outscored 38-28 in the fourth.

Harvard has been outscored 38-28 in the first period, but it has outscored its opponents in the fourth 33-29.

In the event that the Crimson fall behind early—a tendency of the team this season—it should have ample opportunity to make a late run.

Harvard will look for continued offense from sources other than sophomore Jeff Cohen and junior Dean Gibbons, who have each scored 25 goals on the year, accounting for 41% of the team’s scores this season.

Sophomore Kevin Vaughan has increased his production of late and had three goals against Princeton.

“I think our game against Princeton was evidence that when we work together as a unit great things happen,” Duboe said. “Our production will be a result of how well we play as a unit, not necessarily any individual performances. If we stick to the fundamentals and execute, things should take care of themselves.”

The Crimson will face a difficult task in trying to score against Bulldog junior goalie Johnathan Falcone, who leads the Ivy in goals against average with 8.71 allowed per game.

But a large part of that statistic has to do with the fact that the Yale defense allows the fewest number of shots of any team in the conference.

“Yale has a young but solid defense,” junior midfielder Andrew Parchman said. “We’ve just got to execute; it’s always a question of whether we can fulfill our gameplan.”

The Bulldogs excel when the ball is on the ground.

They lead the Ancient Eight in ground balls per game with 32.6 and have the best faceoff percentage in the conference at 55.5%.

Harvard hopes to counter with another strong performance from freshman midfielder Alex White, who won 12 faceoffs and grabbed eight ground balls against the Tigers.

The Crimson is 5-1 on the year when it snags more ground balls than its opponents.

“It’s really just a mentality when you go into games,” said Parchman, who is first on the team in faceoffs won. “It’s not the person who has the better stick skills or has better position, it’s the person who wants the ground ball or the faceoff more who gets it.”

Last season, Harvard beat Yale, 13-8, in a game in which Cohen had five goals.

The Bulldogs lead the historic rivalry, which began in 1882, 57-32. But few—if any—of those match-ups have ever been as important as tomorrow’s.

If Yale wins, the contest will mark the end of solid Harvard careers for midfielders Travis Burr and Duboe—a finalist for the Lowe’s Senior CLASS Award—and defensemen Billy Geist and Ben Smith, among other seniors.

But the team doesn’t plan to have their seasons end on a sour note.

“Lacrosse means the world to this senior class and every guy on the team, so we don’t want it to end,” Duboe said. “The games that we’ll play in the future don’t really matter, the games that we won in the past don’t matter. It all comes down to this game.”