Booters Slip Past Cards, 1-0

Last season, the Harvard men's soccer team would have lost a game like yesterday's against Wesleyan.

But this year, as Coach George Ford likes to say, it's a better squad--a little quicker, a little more experienced, and maybe a little more patient.

This last quality proved decisive on the hard, bumpy Connecticut cowfield as the Crimson came up with a key goal with just 1:48 left in the match to cop a 1-0 victory over the Cardinals.

The game matched two teams noted primarily for their strength in the midfield and on the back line. Action centered in the middle third of the field, with neither team controlling the play for long stretched.

Wesleyan smoked during the first few, minutes, sizzling in the offensive zone and putting more than a little pressure on Harvard goalie Pete Walsh.

Crimson coach George Ford then shored up the center by temporarily moving Michael Smith and Mauro Keller-Sarmiento--who started in the front line of Harvard's 4-4-2 alignment--into the midfield.

The move worked well both ways. Mostly because of the quick change in momentum at midfield spurred by the inspired ball handling of Smith and Keller-Sarmiento, Richard Berkman and Lance Ayrault finally managed to put some heat on Wesleyan goalie Dave Coombs.

Harvard also managed to keep the ball deep in the Wesleyan zone for large period of time, especially in the first half. That bodes well for Saturday's match against nationally ranked UConn.

But for much of the second half, the Harvard attack degenerated into the kind of long ball game the squad must avoid. As the Crimson lost much of its midfield superiority, Wesleyan defenders consistently booted the sphere back into the Harvard end. Only some vintage play by the Crimson's veteran goalie in the last minutes of the game kept the Cardinals from getting a score up in lights.

The Crimson break--an honest-to-god lucky one at that--came with just under two minutes left. Berkman lofted the ball somewhere in the general vicinity of the box, and Coombs came out to gather it in.

Mixplaying the ball badly, the Cardinal sweeper headed the ball over Coombs' head back toward the net. Ayrault picked it up around the six-yard mark and chipped it home. According to Wesleyan coach Terry Jackson, "Ayrault had no chance to miss it."

The Crimson narrowly outshot the Cardinals in the see-saw battle, coming up with 19 shots to Wesleyan's 18.