Crimson Plays to Scoreless Draw

The engines are slowing down for the No. 6 Harvard men’s soccer team (2-1-2) after an energetic start to the season.

The Crimson was caught in a scoreless deadlock, the second of the season, against New Mexico (3-1-2) yesterday afternoon. Even after double overtime under the Albuquerque sun, both teams failed to find the back of the net, though not from a lack of opportunities. Harvard fired seven shots while the Lobos had 14, seven of which junior goalkeeper Austin Harms had to prevent from going in.

“In the first half, I thought we were a little better,” Crimson coach Carl Junot said. “We pressured them well, and we had a few more attacking opportunities than they did. In the second half, though, we thought UNM got hold of the game, and they pressured us, and they clearly had the better opportunities on goal.”

Those opportunities kept Harms busy for most of the second half, but it was Harvard that set the tone early on, with a type of high-quality soccer that was much different from the way the team played in its loss against UC Santa Barbara on Friday.

The Crimson was able to control UNM’s flair and create opportunities for itself. Junior Baba Omosegbon had a shot on goal early in the game, and 20 minutes later, sophomore forward Brian Rogers took a shot at goalkeeper Justin Holmes, but Holmes successfully took care of each opportunity.

New Mexico failed to have a successful shot at Harms in the first half, and the drought continued into the first few minutes of the second half. But eventually, Harvard let down just enough for the hosts to take advantage of the opportunity.

The Lobos’ Michael Green challenged the Crimson goalkeeper with two shots in the 67th minute, warning Harms of what was yet to come.

New Mexico bombarded Harvard in the second half with 11 shots, testing Harms in a variety of ways.

The junior had to block Ryan Farquharson’s shot right after the sequence with Green, and, only a couple of minutes later, Harms had to block a header from Green again.

“Harms in goal played incredibly well,” Junot said. “He bailed us out in both games. Ultimately against Santa Barbara they had too much attack, and Harms couldn’t save [the two goals], but today he played fantastic, perhaps the best player on the field.”

Without a score in either half, both teams went into overtime, but fatigue played a part in the pace of the game. The match turned into an exchange of counterattacks but only to result in a lack of goals.

“We have talented enough players to play beautiful soccer, but a lot of the time we get pressured,” Harms said. “We’re lobbing balls forward behind the defense and just letting our forwards run onto it, which is sometimes an effective method, but in my opinion we have talent to combine and really get in behind teams like that.”

The Crimson’s sole shot on goal after the first half came off the foot of sophomore Scott Prozeller in the first period of overtime. But Holmes turned this attempt away too, preserving his clean sheet. Harms also earned a shutout, the 14th of his career, despite having to work much harder for it.

The Harvard backstop nearly helped the Crimson steal a late-game score after saving a shot from Lance Rozeboom. Harms played the ball up as Harvard put a series of passes together to get freshman forward Connor McCarthy a chance to shoot. His attempt flew high, though, sending the Crimson to a scoreless tie.

“I think the hardest thing to do in soccer is to score a goal,” Junot said. “Friday and [yesterday], I thought we improved dramatically in our attacking play. You can’t put your finger on why you don’t score goals in the game, but at the end of the day you don’t lose games if other teams don’t score on you.”

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