Laxmen Win One

Spring is here. The snow has melted, the birds are out, and the Harvard lacrosse team is back in action. Coach Bob Scalise's talented laxmen traveled south over the vacation to open the '78 campaign with a bird hunt of their own, but unfortunately the hunter was captured by the game as the second-ranked Johns Hopkins Bluejays downed the Crimson, 11 -4.

Harvard bounced back with a 15-6 thrashing of C.W. Post on Wednesday, but its luck turned sour on Saturday as a last-second shot gave Hofstra a thrilling 10-9 victory and the Crimson their second loss of the young season.

Harvard came out slow in the opener against highly-touted Hopkins a week ago. The Bluejays, fresh off a 21-10 bombardment of Washington College and a similar 22-5 annihilation of Towson State, jumped out to a 6-0 halftime lead as the Crimson tried to get used to playing on grass for the first time this season.

While the offense tried to get untracked, the Crimson defense of Haywood Miller, Frank Preziozo, Mike Kennedy and Scott Pink kept the game close. "Our defense can play with any attack in the country," claimed goalie Kenny First last night. And against Hopkins, the man who showed that most clearly was Miller. The freshman standout from Baltimore played man-to-man against All-American Mike O'Neil, who won the award as the best attackman in the nation last year. While O'Neil did come up with two goals and three assists, those points were almost exclusively a result of unsettled situations rather than one-on-one encounters with Miller.

At any rate, the rusty but aggressive Crimson overcame the obnoxious Hopkins cannon and the rainy weather to bring the score to 6-2 midway through the third period, when they found themselves with a man up, but a Bluejay fast-break goal shattered any upset hopes. The final count was 11-4, with Mike Faught (2), Steve Martin, and Mike Ward providing the Crimson goals.

"The team gained a lot of confidence against Hopkins," netminder First said, and it showed when the stickmen took the field against C.W. Post on Wednesday. Post, which had trounced Yale, 10-6, earlier in the week, showed early in the game that it would have to be reckoned with as the skirmish adjourned at halftime with Harvard leading by only 5-3.

Things turned around in the third period, however, when the Harvard scoring machine, led by Pete Predun, Billy For-bush and Jim Ossyra, uncorked nine netrippers to Post's one, securing the Crimson's first win of the campaign.

Forbush and Ossyra both netted hat tricks, but according to First, Predun--the man who was billed as the nation's top high school player two years ago--was "the best player we saw on the whole trip." The sophomore from Long Island picked up two goals and two assists against Post, and added another pair of goals and three more assists in the Hofstra game.

The Hofstra affair was the kind that makes you wonder what makes coaches, players and fans alike subject themselves to emotional torture in the first place. Hofstra won the game on a shot that hit both posts and went in at 14:59 of the fourth period--that's right, folks, one lousy second left.

Trailing 9-7 with only a minute to go in a see-saw battle, the Crimson rallied to tie it up. First junior Jamie East won a face-off and initiated a fast-break that ended in a Bobby Mellen goal. Then Hank Leopold tallied to create the deadlock. Hofstra brought the ball inbounds with 25 seconds to go and set up a play. One shot went wide, a second was blocked by First, but the third bounced into the cage, dropping the Crimson's record to 1-2.