Booters Have a Devil of a Date

One month ago, the Harvard men's soccer team travelled to Florida for two games in the nation's Sunshine State.

The Crimson won both contests, but that is not as important as why the booters took the trip.

Harvard Coach Jape Shattuck scheduled these games, "because we thought that at the end of the season we might have to play a Southern team, and I wanted the team to get used to [different playing] conditions."

The time has finally come. By capturing three of its toughest duels of the season, the Crimson booters earned a trip to North Carolina to face the Duke Blue Devils in tomorrow afternoon's semifinals of the NCAA Division I Men's Soccer Tournament.

Looking back on that trip to the sun and heat of Florida, one might think that the 90-degree playing experience would come in handy in Raleigh, home of the Blue Devils, but that is not necessarily the case.

Harvard took advantage of its home field edge and the crisp Cambridge weather in each of its first three NCAA victories.

In the opening round against Yale, the Crimson used its larger field to dominate play along the flanks and to keep the Elis continuously on defense.

Then, with the New England Championship and the right to play Hartwick up for grabs, the booters slipped by Boston University on the grass and freezing water of Ohiri--instead of crossing the Charles to play on the unfriendly artificial turf of the Terriers' Nickerson Field.

And finally against Hartwick, near-zero temperatures did not stop a determined Harvard squad, while favored 'Wick shivered its way to a 2-0 loss.

Tomorrow, however, neither the field nor the weather should play any role at all--the field is big, the surface is grass, and the weather should be in the 60-degree range.

Where's the Edge?

So where is the edge in this game?

Neither side need worry much about its goalie situation. Duke's junior netminder, Mark Dodd, has a 1.1 goals against average, while Harvard's Chad Reilly--the hero of the the Crimson's dramatic shootout victory over Yale and the key to the next two wins--has a mere 0.92 GAA.

The front lines match up rather evenly as well.

Harvard's front line is led by freshman sensation Derek Mills, who has paced the team in scoring with 13 goals and four assists in 10 games, senior John Catliff (11 goals, five assists), and junior Nick Hotchkin (six, eight).

The Blue Devils are led by former Player of the Year and leading Herman Trophy candidate John Kerr, who has registered 13 goals and 13 assists.

Other top scorers for Duke include Tommy Stone (15, four), Carl Williams (eight, four) and Jason Weightar (six, eight).

Overall, the Devils are averaging 2.04 goals per game to Harvard's 2.20--another statistic that is too close to make any real difference.

But there are two major differences between the Harvard and Duke booters that numbers do not show--experience and midfield play.

Duke has owns an advantage in the experience department. Apart from having 11 seniors on their squad, six of whom play regularly, the Blue Devils have played in the NCAA tournament in five of the previous six years.

In 1982, Duke reached the finals, where it lost to Indiana 2-1 in eight overtimes.

Harvard, on the other hand, fields only three seniors and has reached post-season play only once (1984) in the same six years--and was shut out by UCLA in the second round.

But what the Crimson lacks in experience, it makes up for in its midfield and defensive play.

Led by Captain Paul Nicholas, the Crimson midfield played a big role in swinging the momentum from Hartwick to Harvard in the second half of last week's game.

"Once we stopped committing unforced errors, Nicholas started using his influence much more. He created the psychological turning point of the game," Shattuck said.

This week's game will match Harvard with a weaker defense. "They [Duke] have unbalanced attacking strength: three very strong offensive players, but as you get closer to the goal they get worse," Shattuck said.

Against B.U., which has a team similar to Duke's Harvard took several chances with more passes up the middle. This strategy worked because the few passes that got through the defense were almost sure goals at the feet of Catliff and Mills.

This same strategy should work against the Devils because, according to Shattuck, "the sweeper plays deep, he leaves space in the midfield, which will allow Nicholas to generate offense--it will be difficult for them to shut us down."

A New Beginning

Despite defeating Hartwick, 5-0, earlier in the season, Duke Coach John Rennie said he was happy Harvard got past Hartwick last weekend, because he would rather play the Crimson--a team the Devils have never met on the pitch.

"We much prefer to play Harvard than Hartwick," Rennie said. "We had an unrealistic game against Hartwick, and from a coaching standpoint I don't want my players to have to deal with the psychology of that [facing a team they had defeated 5-0]."

Rennie got his wish, so now the Devils get the Crimson, with the winner earning a trip to the Tacoma Dome in Tacoma, Wash., to play the winner of tomorrow's other semifinal match-up (between Akron and Fresno St.).

Apparently, Shattuck never thought beyond the national semifinals, for he didn't schedule a match against a team that plays in a domed stadium.