The Scouting Report From Guatemala

The best information that UCLA men's soccer Coach Sigi Schmid has about the Harvard men's soccer team comes from Guatemala.

Since the Pac-10 and the Ivy League have never had much of an athletic relationship, and since the schools are three thousands miles apart, both squads are relying on hearsay, rather than detailed scouting reports, to prepare for their NCAA quarterfinal showdown Sunday.

But Schmid's star center midfielder and leading scorer, Dale Ervine has been able to give his coach an excellent report on Harvard's Lane Kenworthy.

And the reason has a lot do with Guatemala--which is of course--where Ervine and Kenworthy got acquainted.

What, you might well ask, were Ervine and Kenworthy--who figure to be the two central figures in the 1 p.m. showdown in Southern California--doing in Central America?

The two were selected to the U.S. Junior National team and ventured to Guatemala in the summer of 1982 to compete in a regional qualifying tournament for the Youth World Cup.

Now, Ervine's feeding his coach the word on Kenworthy.

"Pretty much, the only one we know about is Lane," Scmid says. "And that's because a few of our guys played with him in Guatemala."

The road to Central America and the NCAA quarterfinals began for Kenworthy when he picked up the game of soccer as a seven-year-old in Atlanta.

"I was pretty good at it, because I was a lot bigger," says the soft-spoken Southerner.

Kenworthy, now a junior and captain of the Harvard men's soccer team, is still pretty good and still a lot bigger.

The 6-ft., 3-in. center forward has scored 24 points so far this season and led his teammates to the New England Championship last weekend.

His first year in Cambridge, Kenworthy played out of position as a wing. When Harvard Coach Jape Shattuck moved him to center forward the following year, the sparks began to fly.

"He's come on in leaps and bounds," Shattuck says. "He's one of the quickest center forwards we've had."

With Kenworthy and 6-ft., 3-in. John Catliff towering over an opposition goal, the Crimson has been able to use its lethal attack of long crosses to great advantage.

"We do play a lot of crosses," Kenworthy says. "We have guys on the sides who can get 'em off and it helps to have big guys in the middle."

Especially big guys like Kenworthy.

"He's got a highly developed technique," Shattuck says. "He's got the height and the jumping ability.

"When he is in position to shoot, he generates a high-velocity shot without much hip action, which enables him to be accurate and sudden."

But its not his great technique that caused his teammates to elect him their captain as a junior. On a team with only a single senior starter, Kenworthy was a natural choice because of his attitude.

"He's got the absolutely ice-water-in-the-veins composure," Shattuck says. "He plays at a consistent level.

"He plays at the same level in training as in games. In training if he scored 12, he'd look for the 13th."

Against Tufts, Kenworthy kept gunning for the Jumbo net even after the game got out of hand and ended up with four goals in the 7-1 triumph.

The junior leads the Crimson with 11 goals, including four game-winners.

But the stats don't interest him.

"All I was thinking about was making one of the two spots from New England [in the NCAA draw]," Kenworthy says.

"It was kind of iffy--would have been hard to complain.

"I think we're the best."

Certainly the best in New England, and who knows, maybe even in Guatemala.