Laxmen Fall to Eagles, 9-7, Suffer Fourth Straight Defeat

The Harvard men's lacrosse team, battered by injuries, inexperience and just plain lack of practice, suffered its fourth straight loss of the still-young season last night, dropping a 9-7 decision to Boston College, on the lighted Astroturf at Alumni Stadium.

After seeing his team trail for all but the first few minutes of the game, and by as much as three goals at one point. Boston College middie Eugene Miller knocked in the game-tying goal with 45 seconds left in the third quarter, and then put the Eagles ahead to stay, 7-6, at the 1:40 mark of the final period.

Miller also notched B.C.'s fourth goal, while fellow Eagle midfielder Pat Coleman tallied four more for the winners. Miller and Coleman put on their two-man show with powerful, well-placed shots, a weapon the Harvard stickmen didn't seem to have in their arsenal.

"Today we really had trouble shooting the ball." Crimson coach Bob Scalise said after the game, "trouble in getting off shots that were both hard and accurate."

Scalise blamed the Crimson's rusty shooting skills on missed practice time this season--time missed with the elimination of fall lacrosse practice in the Ivy League, with preseason practice cut down from last year's six nights to this year's three, and with Briggs Cage, the laxmen's indoor home, on sabbatical.

"We're not as sharp as we usually are right now. We haven't had time to work with people like we used to," Scalise said. "If you play in a summer league and then you don't pick up a stick until the next spring, your shooting's going to be off."

Inexperience

Ten freshmen on the varsity squad, lacking in needed experience and the line-up shuffling Scalise has had to do after top-scorers Brendan Meagher and Norm Forbush were felled by injuries haven't helped either.

"We're still really scrambling to find the right units," Scalise said.

The highlights for the Crimson in last night's game were defenseman Frank Prezioso's birthday-present-to-himself goal to open the scoring, and the two tallies each by Mike Davis and Garrett Pedroni. And overall the Crimson has picked up its play since the vacation losses to Johns Hopkins, Delaware and Cornell.

"It hasn't been going really well," Scalise said. "But at least we played better than we did on the trip."

THE NOTEBOOK: Harvard collected 56 ground balls to Boston College's 40, so it wasn't like the Crimson wasn't working hard...Davis separated his shoulder in the first half but continued to play and scored both his goals after the injury...Bobby Burr and Bruce Ernst scored the other Harvard goals...The Crimson's next game is on Sunday against Penn in New Canaan, Conn.