Men's Lacrosse Defeats Cornell For Third Consecutive Time

Last season, the Harvard men’s lacrosse team dropped every single one of its conference road games. The squad sported a respectable 2-1 record at home, but with its costly struggles away, it finished 2-4 and second-to-last overall in the Ivy.

This past Saturday, the Crimson had its first chance to redeem itself when it traveled to Ithaca, N.Y., to face off against Cornell. After grabbing an early lead and maintaining a slight advantage throughout the first half, however, Harvard suddenly found itself trailing 7-6 in the third quarter. The Big Red had just scored three times in less than a minute, seizing the momentum and fueling the excitement of a crowd of over 1000 spectators.

With the contest hanging in the balance, the Crimson quickly found the back of the net to tie the score and then went on the offensive. Outscoring Cornell by a margin of 6-1 over the last 21:16 of the match, Harvard made sure it secured its first conference road win in almost two years.

The Crimson (6-5, 2-1 Ivy) has now earned three straight victories against the Big Red (4-5, 1-3), after winning 10-9 in a close game at Harvard Stadium last season and 14-9 in Ithaca the year before. In the 2016 Ivy standings, the Crimson also holds the advantage, sitting in sole possession of third place after Saturday’s results. Cornell, meanwhile, fell to fifth place with the loss.

“It’s always good to win an Ivy game, especially on the road,” Harvard coach Chris Wojcik ’96 said. “The guys also wanted to win this one for [new Assistant Head] Coach DeLuca, who used the be the head coach at Cornell.”

DeLuca, who mainly coaches the Crimson defense, had his men ready for the start of the match, as the unit only allowed three goals in the first half, all unassisted. The Big Red found it much more difficult to score than it did last week, when it slotted away 13 into the Dartmouth net in the same time period.

Harvard sophomore goalie Robert Shaw was the main reason for Cornell’s struggles, as he made nine saves in the first 30 minutes of play.

“Fortunately, I was able to see a lot of their shots as they came in,” Shaw said. “Credit really goes to the defense for forcing some low angle shots and helping me get in a rhythm early on.”

Because the Crimson started slowly on offense as well, however, it only held a 2-1 lead at the end of the first quarter and 4-3 advantage at halftime. Harvard senior attackmen Will Walker and Devin Dwyer paced the team on the this end of the field in the first two frames, with Walker tallying two goals and Dwyer picking up two assists.

The game opened up in the third quarter, with the two teams trading goals as each went on a big run. The Big Red pushed forward first, netting three straight goals to take a 7-6 lead. The Crimson answered with four straight of its own, however, seizing back control of the game.

“Our guys have been in that situation before and didn’t panic,” Wojcik said. “It was great to see them have a short memory when it came to the plays that didn’t go our way, and then in the fourth quarter, I thought our conditioning benefited us a lot.”

Cornell went on one final attack and drew to within two goals late in game, but Shaw stepped up to the challenge, stopping eight shots in the fourth period.

Sophomore attackman Morgan Cheek and senior midfielder Ian Ardrey then put the game away for Harvard with two late goals as they took advantage of a Big Red defense that was forced to push up the field.

“At the end, we rushed them into taking some bad shots,” Shaw said. “Then the offense stepped up and put it away. It was good to go into the last few minutes with the lead, not having to catch up like some other times this season, and finish it off.”

—Staff writer George Hu can be reached at yianshen.hu@college.harvard.edu.