No. 13 Harvard Men's Lacrosse Wins Inaugural Battle Against Binghamton 17-12

The No. 13 Harvard men’s lacrosse team (7-2, 1-1 Ivy) went to work on Saturday, putting its last non-conference matchup of the season to bed with a 17-12 victory over Binghamton University. Despite a late-in-the-game spur from the Bearcats, the inaugural meeting between the two programs fell in favor of the Crimson in what was a must-win matchup heading into the critical last stretch of Ancient Eight play.

Both teams entered the contest with momentum, with Harvard coming off its decisive victory against No. 17 Boston University on Tuesday, and Binghamton riding the high of a four-game win-streak that has turned its season around to 4-4 from an 0-4 start. But, that win-streak was broken today.

Breaking from its formula of striking early, the Crimson found itself playing catchup as Binghamton drew first blood on Jordan Field. Freshman FOGO Jackson Henehan won the first face off for Harvard, getting the ball down on the offensive end, but a solid save from Binghamton’s senior net minder Connor Winters — who posted a career-best 19 saves on the day — sent the ball down to the visitor’s attacking side where the Bearcats were able to find the back of the cage with just six seconds on the shot clock. Binghamton showed poise throughout the contest, routinely using the entirety of its 80 seconds — and several times making use of the shot clock reset — to tire out the Harvard bench.

“We got off to a sloppy start offensively, but we kept to our values,” junior attackman Teddy Malone said. “Once we got in a rhythm we had a really good first half.”

With about 9:30 on the clock, freshman goalie Graham Stevens posted two back-to-back saves that kept the Bearcats’ lead to one. Scooping up the ground ball on the rebound was junior defenseman Charlie Muller, who got the ball to sophomore SSDM Jack Petersen, and eventually over the line. Rotating on the starting middie trio of juniors Logan Ip, Francisco Cortes, and Andrew Perry, the attack got the ball rotating nicely around the perimeter, moving the defense so that Perry could test his short stick matchup. Dodging with speed, Perry got underneath his defender, lowering his shoulder and not finding pressure from the adjacent slide as danced around the crease before sending it past Winters.

Henehan’s performance at the face off X today — alongside junior Matt Barraco and sophomore Owen Umansky who also rotated in — was the highlight of the season so far. Coming into the contest at just 35.1%, the team rallied to a combined 62% win-rate, with Henehan individually going 79%. This change allowed the offense to settle into its possessions, and string together a series of plays that would be much-needed in maintaining the team’s buffer through the fourth quarter.

“Every time you get the offense the ball it’s another chance to score, so it was great for us” Henehan said. “On the face off game, I wasn’t really hitting the whistle, but the ground ball game was really big and that was a huge part of why we did so well at the X today.”

Despite winning the next clamp, the offense couldn’t handle the pressure, quickly turning the ball over to Binghamton on an errant pass. Despite gifting the visitor possession, Binghamton failed to clear the ball in the 20-second timeframe, turning it right back over to the Crimson, who didn’t squander its second chance. Malone — who posted four goals on the day — found space on a face dodge from X, gaining a step on his defender as he curled around the right side of the cage and shot it low past Winters.

The next goal came from sophomore attackman Jack Speidell — who scored five times against Binghamton, and ranks as the No. 26 highest scorer in Division I — as he scooped up the rebound of a shot by senior middie Miles Botkiss on the doorstep, diving for the ball and flicking it top shelf in a hockey-like assist. Binghamton would break the Crimson’s run with another goal of its own, but Harvard would cap off scoring for the first quarter with just one second left on the clock in a Sports Center Top-10-level hail mary fashion. With four seconds on the game clock, Botkiss heaved the ball from the defensive end toward the cage in what the crowd thought was one last shot attempt. However, Speidell caught Botkiss’s throw, and with just 0.1 seconds left, sent a righty riser into the back of the cage.

The din of Joker and the Thief blared through the loudspeaker as the Harvard bench erupted in raucous cheers. That was exactly the momentum the Crimson needed to find its groove heading into the second quarter.

“We got warmed up and started playing our own game,” junior SSDM Owen Guest said. “At a certain point we realized that our team knew what we needed to do, and started doing it. We figured out our game plan and executed it well.”

The attack certainly started executing, and Malone got things started just 40 seconds into the second on an assist from senior attackman and mid-season First-Team All American Sam King, who found him sailing around the right side of the cage for an easy finish on the doorstep. Binghamton would answer in kind three minutes later, but despite the Bearcats’ attempts to keep the contest close, the next seven goals would go in favor of the team in white.

Junior SSDM Owen Guest notched a tally for the second-straight game with a goal on the fast break following yet another successful win at the face off. Less than two minutes later, senior attackman Liam Griffiths would notch his first goal of the season on a man-up goal assisted by Malone. Initially squandering the extra-man opportunity with an easily-read stick-side-high outside take stuffed by Winters, Harvard’s animalistic ride — which held the Bearcats to just 15 successful clears on 24 attempts — forced the goalie to sail the ball across midline and into space, where lockdown defense from senior defenseman Tommy Martinson saw the ball drop to the turf, and allowed Stevens to scoop it up and get the clear in motion. With just one second left on the man-up, Malone hit a cutting Griffiths on the doorstep where he struck paydirt.

The King to Speidell connection couldn’t be stopped, and the Crimson’s eighth and ninth goals of the afternoon made the twine sing just two minutes apart as King first found Speidell all alone on the doorstep with 8:04 on the clock for a decisive righty snipe. The second goal was the result of a high-IQ move by the Crimson to get its attack deep into the offensive zone as Binghamton was called for off-sides, which enabled it to push the ball quickly and take advantage of the unsettled moment as King sent the one-more to the sophomore who was holding his space on the right side of the crease without Binghamton coverage as the clock read 6:11.

Sitting at No. 7 in the nation for total points, No. 18 for goals, and No. 24 for assists, the Gilman School alum didn’t remain silent for long, and King found his first goal of the day with 5:50 on the game clock. The strike would mark the end of scoring for both teams through the first half.

Harvard would start things off two minutes into the third on a goal from Malone assisted by junior middie John Aurandt IV, and the next strike would come from senior middie Owen Gaffney. The LA native sent his defender sailing on a shifty right-to-left split dodge at the top of the arc that got his hands free, and allowed him to sling a lefty rocket home one minute after Malone’s goal, at 11:34.

But, Binghamton wasn’t ready to take its defeat lying down. Just 15 seconds later, the Bearcats struck paydirt on a text-book fast break finish off the face off that exploited the Crimson’s upfield slides that left a Binghamton attackman open on the crease. The next strike went for the New York team as well, and even with Malone and Speidell each posting another tally in response, the end of the third quarter and beginning of the fourth would skew entirely in favor of the visiting team.

Sophomore middie Jackson Greene notched his first goal of the season with 39 seconds left in the third in decisive fashion, faking out his defender on the wing and slinging the ball in the top-right corner. However, Binghamton had the final say of the period, as senior attackman Liam Ferris — who had five goals in the contest — got underneath Martinson, who overplayed him on the inside as he slid to the crafty attackman, and bounced it around Stevens to end the quarter.

In a total shift of momentum, the next four goals would find their way past Stevens, truncating Harvard’s lead to just four goals — a far departure from its nine-goal lead in the third — with over nine minutes left to play in the contest. With the Crimson bench noticeably quiet, there was a palpable change in atmosphere on Jordan as Harvard realized that victory wasn’t an outcome to take for granted.

As the unforced errors started to compound, and Binghamton started to gain confidence with its string of plays, the last 15 minutes of the contest were a departure from Frisbee Family Head Coach Gerry Byrne’s typically-disciplined style of play. While the team was able to stymie the threat of a complete comeback from Binghamton — a goal from Ip provided the final nail in the coffin, extending the team’s margin of victory to five, and capped off scoring — it will need to minimize its unforced errors and work on its shot selection as it heads into a tough conference game this weekend.

“It was laziness, and that’s on all of us,” said Malone about Binghamton’s run through the fourth quarter. “It came down to not playing the lacrosse we’re used to, and taking our foot off the gas pedal. It won’t happen again in future games.”

The lapse in concentration certainly can’t happen again if Harvard hopes to come out victorious against its tough string of next opponents. The squad will travel to Hanover, N.H. on Saturday to take on the No. 18 Dartmouth Big Green — which is having its best season since 2007, cracking the top-20 and falling just short of an upset win against against No. 4 Princeton today — in what is sure to be a close and contested competition on Sully-Fahey Field at 1 p.m.. If you can’t catch the action in person, the game will also be streamed live on ESPN+.

—Staff writer Katharine A. Forst can be reached at katharine.forst@thecrimson.com