Crimson Booters Destroy UMass, 4-2

The Crimson soccer team returned home with a bang yesterday, blasting UMass, 4-2. Sc ring ace Dave Acorn returned to the lineup after his knee injury with equal fury, notching two of the four Crimson tallies.

The victory evened the squad's record at 2-2 but left them 2-0 here in friendly Cambridge.

Harvard coach George Ford had his team funnel the ball to "distributor" Lee Nelson in the middle of the field, where he had the option of holding the ball or playing it wide to one of the forwards.

The plan worked well at times, prompting Ford to term Nelson the "key man." The team created scoring opportunities right from the start, and capitalized only five minutes into the contest on a goal by forward Dave Eaton.

Beautiful Pass

Moments later, a beautiful lead pass from Dave Acorn found Lyman Bullard alone in front of the UMass net, but he hit the post and then shanked the rebound wide left. After 21 minutes of play, the Minutemen got a goal from Tony Biladeau to knot the score.

From then until the intermission, Harvard took complete control of the game and kept steady pressure on UMass's inner defense. After 20 minutes of muffed opportunities, Acorn finally rammed home the rebound of an Eaton shot off a long feed by fullback Kevin Jiggetts. Harvard led at the half, 2-1.

Harvard upped the margin to two early in the second half. Matt Bowyer chipped a short pass toward the goal mouth. Acorn came streaking over from the left and fired the ball past the Minuteman netminder.

But Not Enough

The booters refused to be content with only three goals, and in the next 10 minutes Acorn just barely missed two more scoring bids, one a weak dribble that got past the goalie but missed the net.

But suddenly Harvard started getting sloppy, and UMass got back into the game. Shortly after a Crimson fullback almost headed the ball into his own goal, a teammate was called for a hand ball inside the penalty area. On the ensuing penalty kick, Bob McChesney scored to pull UMass within one.

The goal didn't change Harvard's new-found propensity for poor soccer, but the Minutemen failed to cash in during the next few minutes, and control of the game slowly swung back to the Crimson.

Eaton fed the ball to Acorn, but his head-in attempt went wide. Moments later, Eaton again drove the ball toward the UMass goal. The pass was taken by Lee Nelson, who was tripped in the penalty area. Eric Zager converted on the penalty kick, and Harvard had the game safely in hand, 4-2.

In the closing minutes, Crimson goalie Fred Herold was forced to make two saves on shots from directly in front of the net, but that was the end of UMass's final gasp.

An elated Ford said after the game that his squad had played "its best game of the year." While Acorn made a successful return from his knee injury, Ford may have lost another valuable regular for the time being. Early in the second half, Kevin Jiggetts had to be helped from the field with a knee injury.