M. Cagers Fall Short

In a season where wins may be hard to come by, this loss was hard to stomach.

After leading by as many as 12 points in the first half, the Harvard men's basketball team dropped a close game to Fairfield last night at Briggs Cage, 84-77.

A career high 23 points from senior power forward Eric Carter and 28 from captain Tyler Rullman could not overcome an avalanche of Fairfield three pointers in the second half.

The defeat drops Harvard to 1-3 on the season, while Fairfield moved to 4-0 for the first time since 1984.

The outcome of this game could have been different, though.

At the beginning of the contest, Harvard simply outplayed Fairfield.

"We wanted to establish a rhythm early, and we stressed the importance of getting off to a good start," Harvard Coach Frank Sullivan said.

With junior Tarik Campbell consistently breaking through the Fairfield press, Harvard's offense clicked as well as it has all season. Good passing kept the Crimson active, and Carter earned his 15 first half points with a sparkling seven for seven performance from the field.

On the other end of the court, Harvard's defense effectively shut down Fairfield's star center, Drew Henderson. Throughout the game, the Crimson shifted back and forth from a man-to-man to a 1-3-1 zone defense and confused the Stages, who responded by throwing up hurried jump shots.

With 10 minutes left in the first half, Harvard had taken a 25-13 lead and looked to have comfortable control of the game.

Then came the bad part.

Fairfield rallied behind a series of layups and three-pointers, slicing through the rapidly disintegrating Harvard defense.

"We gave a good effort, but we just weren't really solid on D at those key points," Carter said.

Fairfield guard Kevin George and center Tim Schwartz led the Stags on a 29-10 run to close the half, and the Crimson went into the locker room down by seven, 42-35.

At the start of the second period, Fairfield picked up where it left off.

A quick spurt keyed by junior forward Scott Sytulek made the score 58-44 with 13 minutes left.

Harvard chipped back into the game, though, and when Carter hit a short jumper at the 7:14 mark, the Crimson was down by a measly five points, 62-57.

But the Crimson could get no closer. Whenever they would creep to within striking distance, Sytulek would answer with a long-range bomb.

"A lot of the credit for this game simply has to go to Fairfield," Sullivan said. "We challenged them to hit some threes, and they did."

The Crimson also fell victim to foul trouble. Both Carter and center Arturo Llopis fouled out, limiting the two players to 21 and 13 minutes respectively.

"The foul trouble to our big men was disconcerting for our rotation," Sullivan said.

"[Sophomore center] Paul Kubiak and [freshman forward] Darren Rankin did a good job, but we still would have like to spread the minutes a little bit more toward our starters," the coach said.

In the last two minutes of the game, the Crimson fouled desperately, but despite a series of Harvard baskets off Fairfield free throw misses, it was too little, too late.

Harvard evidently threw a scare into the Fairfield team, however.

Stag Coach Paul Cormier yelled at his squad for 10 minutes behind closed doors after the game.

"At times tonight we played very well, but we also let [Harvard] back in sometimes when we shouldn't have," said a calmer Cormier later.

"We definitely have a lot of goals at this point besides just winning games, and one of those is getting our kids experience. I was hoping that the freshman backcourt could handle the pressure at the end, but it almost didn't," he said.

Indeed, going into the game, one of Harvard's priorities had been to rattle Fairfield's young backcourt.

Too bad it didn't happen until two minutes were left in the game.

FAIRFIELD, 84-77 At Briggs Cage Harvard  35  42  --  77 Fairfield  42  42  --  84

FG:Harvard--Rullman 11, Carter 9, White 3, Campbell 2, Gilmore 2, Rankin 2; Fairfield--George 7, Sytulek 6, Schwartz 4, Henderson 3, Martin 3, 3-pts: Harvard--Rullman 2, Gilmore 1, White 1; Fairfield--Sytulek 4, Martin 2, George 2, Schwartz 1. Pts: Harvard--Rullman 28, Carter 23, Campbell 9, White 7, Gilmore 5, Rankin 5; Varma--Sytulek 18, George 18, Schwartz 11, Henderson 10, Martin 9, Jones 8. Reb: Harvard--Campbell 9, Rankin 9, Rullman 6, Llopis 4; Varma--Henderson 11, Schwartz 7.

Halftime: Fairfield, 42-35