No. 19 Yale Drops M. Lax, 9-5

Sometimes it's just not your day.

At Ohiri Field on Saturday afternoon the Harvard men's lacrosse team squandered an early three-goal lead, to eventually fall to No. 19 Yale, 9-5. The Bulldogs outscored the Crimson 7-1 in the second half.

Once again the key to the loss was the lack offensive production for Harvard.

"As has been the case all year long, or defense has played well, but our offense hasn't," sophomore attackman Dana Sprong said.

After an early goal to open the scoring by the Bulldogs (7-5, 4-2 Ivy), the Crimson (3-8, 1-4) seemed to take command of the contest. Sprong knotted the match at one late in the first quarter.

Then in the second frame, Harvard began to take command. Freshman midfielder Michael Baly beat Bulldog goalie Joe Pilch to give the Crimson a 2-1 lead.

Sophomore midfielder Roger Buttles then added two more goals of his own, extending Harvard's lead to 4-1.

The Bulldogs, however, were not about to pull out the white flag.

Freshman attackman Brian Hunt got one by junior goalie Keith Cynar for Yale, as the Elis headed into the intermission trailing only 4-2.

Despite the late goal by Yale, Harvard went into the break looking good, having outplayed its Ancient Eight rival.

The second half, however, was a completely different story.

In the third quarter, Yale jumped out all over the Crimson, scoring three consecutive goals to wrestle the lead away from Harvard.

Junior midfielder Nicholas Milone and junior attacker Chris McIntyre netted one goal apiece for the Elis, knotting the game at 4-4. Senior midfielder John Tonzola followed with a tally of his own on a feed from McIntyre for the go-ahead goal, as Yale took a 5-4 lead into the fourth.

"They got a couple of early goals in transition in the second half, and we became a bit flustered," Sprong said. "We started pressing on offense, and felt that we needed to score, which caused some turnovers."

Despite being outscored 3-0 in the third, Harvard still found itself very much in the game against the Bulldogs as it trailed by just one goal. But, unfortunately for the Crimson, the fourth quarter simply brought more Bulldog dominance.

In the final period Yale outscored Harvard 4-1, clinching a 9-5 victory.

McIntyre and Tonzola each scored a goal in the quarter, while Milone added two more for the Elis.

Sprong, who finished the game with two goals and an assist, scored the only goal of the frame for the Crimson.

Junior attackman Lawson DeVries tallied two assists, and junior midfielder Geoff Watson had an assist of his own.

For the game, Yale was paced defensively by senior goalkeeper Joe Pilch, who stopped 19 Harvard attempts on the afternoon.

Cynar saved 12 shots of his own, but it was not enough, as the Crimson attack was unable to generate any kind of offense in the second half.

"Our offense is very young, and their defense has been playing together for several years now," Sprong said. "That has been the case for most of the season. The teams we play against are very experienced, while we haven't play much together at all.

"We're still trying to learn how to play together well as a team, and that has led to some poor offensive production," Sprong added.

The Crimson will hope to salvage some pride from its season as it travels to South Bend, Ind. to take on Notre Dame next Saturday. After the Fighting Irish, Harvard heads to New Hampshire to close out its season against Ivy rival Dartmouth on May 8.

Despite the disappointing results of the season thus far, the Crimson is confident heading into the final games of the year. The squad--which lost several key contributors to graduation last year--is very young and is gaining invaluable playing experience with each passing game, and feels ready to take on its final two opponents.

"We are definitely going expecting to win," Sprong said. "Our defense has played excellent all season long and we just have to get our offense going and score some goals."