No. 11 Men’s Lacrosse Ends Regular Season With 11-10 Win Over Brown

The No. 11 Harvard men’s lacrosse team (10-3, 4-2 Ivy) added another W to the win/loss column on Saturday as it beat the Brown Bears 11-10 in a game that all rested on the momentum of the fourth quarter. Staging an impressive comeback after falling behind 4-0 in the first, the team displayed a grittiness it will need again this weekend as it heads into postseason play.

This past weekend was supposed to be filled with pre-ordained outcomes for the four Ancient Eight teams that are advancing into extra innings. However, like with almost all end of season contests, that was almost not the case. No. 1 Cornell only squeaked past Dartmouth by two goals, 10-8, and No. 2 Princeton blew past Yale 18-7. The story was no different for No. 11 Harvard, which was supposed to handily take care of a Brown team that has failed to win a single game in the Ivy League this season.

Gunning for its first and only win on Senior Day, the Brown squad came out with an intensity that the Harvard team was unable to match. Atypical for Head Coach Gerry Byrne’s bench, the Crimson made a series of careless errors through the first 15 minutes which allowed the Bears to build confidence as they strung together solid plays.

“I think it took a while for us to get used to their aggressive and chaotic game plan,” sophomore LSM Joost de Koning said. “But eventually we learned how to stop their fast breaks and make them play six-on-six lacrosse.”

With the first two strikes landing in less than one minute of the first whistle, the Brown bench was wild as the boys celebrated early. Five seconds into play, Bears FOGO Dash Sachs won it clean forward and raced down the middle of the field, ripping one from out wide as the Harvard defense failed to slide to pick up the body. 50 seconds later, middie Matteo Corsi hit a solid face dodge at the top of the arc, getting a step on Harvard LSM Sean Jordan before sailing it cleanly past freshman goalie Graham Stevens off-stick side. Throughout the contest, Stevens had trouble tracking those outside rips, which allowed the Bears to sneak a couple past the netminder and build confidence early.

The ball made its way back and forth for seven minutes, with each team failing to find the twine. Harvard looked sloppy during that interim period, making some careless mistakes on easy passes, low-percentage outside takes, and suffering from a lack of communication in the midfield. Capitalizing again, Brown found success on another outside rip. Marcus Wertheim capitalized on the late rotation that resulted from the double team sent to cover a dodging Ben Scandone, using the defenseman as a screen to get the ball past Stevens.

About five minutes later Brown player Ben Locke would notch his first goal of the season on the assist from Matteo Corsi as he found space in the middle of the arc on a defensive miscommunication from the Crimson. Squarely covering Corsi was senior SSDM Ray Dearth, who had his player jammed up in the corner. However, a jumpy slide from junior defenseman Charlie Muller to overzealously play the double-team left Locke open for a clean inside look on Stevens.

Regrouping at the break, the squad that took the field was markedly different from the team that started the first period. Striking first for Harvard was junior co-captain Logan Ip, who — in a high-IQ play — backdoored his defender on the doorstep after noticing him ball watching a dodging junior middie John Aurandt IV, who hit Ip as he made his move. 68 seconds later junior attackman Teddy Malone capitalized on a feed from sophomore attackman Jack Speidell, who hit the junior on the right wing on an unsettled play that pulled Brown’s goalie Andy Demopoulos out of the cage where Speidell stripped him on the clear behind before dishing the rock to Malone for the empty-net snipe.

“Coach Byrne told us to stay calm and settle into the game,” de Koning said. “He reminded us that we have been in situations like that before and have come out victorious, like in the game against Syracuse earlier this season.”

It was that poise and experience that aided the Crimson in settling into its rhythm.

Ball movement started looking more cohesive on the attacking end, with the Crimson offense working it quickly along the perimeter before dissecting weaknesses in the Brown defense. Making a strong move and moving it has been the name of the game, and with six minutes on the clock, senior Andrew Perry did just that, making a hard right-to-left split on the left wing before re-dodging and getting a step on his matchup with a shifty outside roll. Falling to the turf, Perry hit top shelf with a righty-riser that left the crowd speechless. The final Harvard goal of the half would come from Ip, who notched his second of five on the day on an assist from senior Sam King.

Brown rounded out the scoring for the first 30 minutes on a goal from middie Luke Dellicicchi who snuck one past Stevens on a slow, changeup bouncer that the freshman couldn’t believe made it past him. Regrouping at the half, and now down by just one, the game seemed level as both teams approached the turf with confidence.

Play through the next two quarters was relatively equal, with Brown notching two goals to Harvard’s three in the third, and three goals to Harvard’s four in the fourth. Getting things going with 11:29 on the clock was the Bears’ Felix Rockefeller, who found himself matched up on senior middie Miles Botkiss — who got caught on the defensive end in the sub game — before lowering his shoulder and bulldozing through the attackman. Creating ample space, Rockefeller got his hands free and ripped the ball.

Finding his first of the day in response was King, who posted back-to-back strikes about four minutes later. In the right place at the right time, the rebound on a missed take from Speidell found the senior waiting behind the cage, and with the ball squarely in his cross, King made one move before diving around the left side of the net and finishing it backhanded. Creeping around the right side of the cage for his second, King realized his defender was caught ball watching as Malone made his way across the top of the arc, shifting the defense along with him, and cut into space where the junior found him for a snipe that painted the top right corner.

Brown’s Aidan McLane bested Stevens about a minute later, but ending scoring for the quarter was again Ip, who found glory with a mere 33 seconds on the clock. Beating his defender on a right-to-left split at the elbow, Ip was able to split the slide with a nifty swim dodge that had him sailing over the goal mouth before being bodied in mid-air by a waiting Brown defender. Drawing a flag for the late hit, the call was waved as Ip’s shot was deemed clean.

Now tied at seven apiece, the contest was anyone’s to win. Starting things off hot for Harvard was junior SSDM Owen Guest, who found the back of the cage just seven seconds into the quarter on a fast break take off the face off. Celebrating with a fist bump, the Harvard team’s one-goal lead was short lived as Brown answered just 40 seconds later as Ben Scandone got a step on junior SSDM Finn Pokorny with a well-executed rocker at the point that awarded him time and space to get the shot off before the Crimson could make the slide.

Stringing together two in a row, Brown found the lead once again with a solid take from Marcus Wertheim just a minute later. Three minutes after Wertheim’s goal, a seemingly-fatal mistake from the Harvard defense had the crowd believing that the game could shift entirely into Brown’s favor. Down two minutes locked-in on a hit to the head, the Crimson defense would need to shut down the home team’s possessions if it wanted to mitigate any potential bleeding.

The team did just that. Rotating quickly, talking through slides, and picking up flying cutters, Byrne’s defense looked poised and unfazed. Standing as the backstop and making a crucial stop was Stevens, who easily swallowed a weak outside take from Wertheim. Not only did the Harvard team clear the ball and wind down the remaining 80 seconds of the man-down set, it defiantly clapped back with a man-down goal from Ip that got it back into contention.

The junior — who led the Crimson offense on the stat sheet — notched his fifth goal, this time at even strength, a minute later on the assist from Perry. Up by one, with 7:04 to play, the game was not over yet as McLane answered in kind three minutes later, forcing the game to hinge on the teams’ performances in the final moments of play.

Stepping up in big moments all season, this game was no different as Speidell sunk his first of the afternoon in what was arguably the biggest moment of the game. With less than a minute on the game clock, Speidell found himself in open space on the right elbow as he lost his defender in the fray. King, who found himself with the rock at X after collecting the rebound on a tipped shot by Speidell, hit the sophomore for another take as he noticed him unguarded. Not wasting the prime opportunity, the St. Anthony’s product showed why he is the No. 15 highest goal scorer in the nation as he ripped it weak side.

Erupting in cheers, all the Crimson had to do was run out the clock and it would win. And, it did just that. A tough-fought victory, but a needed one as the team looks to extend its postseason play not just into a chance at the Ivy Tournament title, but the NCAA Tournament as well.

“This weekend we will look to make it a battle at the faceoff X and in the midfield,” said de Koning about what the team will emphasize heading into its rematch against Princeton. “Time of possession will be a crucial factor, especially in a game that will see a battle between two such dominant offenses.”

The squad will head to Ithaca this Friday where it will take on No. 2 Princeton in the first round of the Ancient Eight Tournament. No. 1 Cornell won the right to host the event with its win over the Crimson last weekend, and the Bears will battle against a Yale team that it handily beat earlier in the season. The lineup for the first round has not yet been set, but if you can’t make the trip upstate, the games will both be streamed on ESPN+.

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