M. Soccer Rebounds, Tops Lions

It was a "zeros to heroes" weekend for the Harvard men's soccer team.

After being blanked by No. 1 Creighton 6-0 on Saturday, the Crimson found its touch on Sunday and upset Columbia, which entered the match 3-0, by a 2-1 final.

The Crimson (1-2, 1-0 Ivy), which started six freshmen and sophomores in each game, now finds itself atop the Ivy League standings and re-energized after two tough home losses.

"We got unlucky in out first game against Providence [a 3-2 overtime loss], and Creighton was a total nightmare, but everyone is really happy about the Columbia win," said senior forward Will Hench. "To win in the Ivy League is better for us than if we'd won the first two and dropped against Columbia."

Harvard 2, Columbia 1

With a night's rest to forget about the Creighton loss, the Crimson took the field against Columbia (3-1, 0-1 Ivy) with a sense of confidence not present the day before.

Sophomore midfielder Joey Smolen put in a dramatic header that broke a 1-1 tie at the 59:00 mark, giving the Crimson a 2-1 win in its Ivy opener.

The first half saw a fluidity in the Crimson offense not seen the day before, with midfielders Mike Peller and Nick Lenicheck providing dynamic play on the wings.

With pressure on the wings, the middle opened up for senior midfielder Armando Petruccelli and junior captain Ryan Kelly to a make a number of runs on the net. Kelly was especially dominant in the middle third, anchoring a continuous Harvard onslaught.

The combined play of Petruccelli and Kelly in the middle led to the Crimson's first goal in the 37th minute.

With Columbia pushed up deep in Harvard's offensive third, Petruccelli got the ball in the middle of the field, turned and saw Kelly with open field on the left side.

Passing to Kelly, Petruccelli continued his run up the right side while Kelly dished off to Hench, who had remained forward with the Columbia defense. Hench found Petruccelli in the box for his first goal of the season.

The second half began with the Crimson again in control, but the Lions equalized in the 57th minute on a play of pure trickery.

While dribbling slowly up the right side, Columbia midfielder Josh Weinstein saw sophomore goalie Mike Meagher a few yards off his line. Looking as though he meant to cross the ball into the left side of the box, Weinstein slowed down and flicked a chip from 30 yards over Meagher's head and into the back of the goal.

Only three minutes later, however, Smolen sacrificed his health and his head to put the Crimson ahead for good.

After receiving an overlapping pass from Petruccelli, Peller again found himself ahead of his defender on the right side and served the ball into the penalty area. Smolen, moving through the box, stepped ahead of his defender and headed the ball low and hard into the net, then went down immediately.

The team jumped, but Smolen lay still, his head on the ground, for about 10 seconds.

"I remember seeing Peller clear on the right side for a nice cross, and I remember moving in and shouting for the ball," Smolen said. "The next thing I remember there were five people on top of me telling me I scored."

After Smolen was assisted off the field, the game resumed, but the Crimson's second goal would be the last of the day. In the last 30 minutes the Harvard defense tightened up, allowing few challenges on Meagher's net.

Not only was the win the first of Harvard Coach John Kerr's career with the Crimson, but it answered many of the questions that had been raised by the Creighton game.

Against the Lions, Harvard switched to a staggered back four, with Kelly stepping forward into the back of the midfield and freshman Mike Lobach moving deeper into his own half. The formula seemed to work.

Lobach, freshman defender Colin Eyre and junior defender Matt Edwards were stellar, and Meagher made a number of terrific saves. Most importantly, Meagher seemed to come off his line with a confidence he did not have the day before.

"In the Providence and Creighton games I was still a little timid around the goal mouth," Meagher said, "but in the Columbia game I finally felt real confident playing at the college level and playing with the four guys in front of me."

Creighton 6, Harvard 0

The Bluejays (3-0-1) captured the top spot in the nation after upsetting then-No. 2 St. Louis on the road last Sunday with a last-second strike in the pouring rain. At Ohiri Field on Saturday the Jays exhibited their road-tested poise as they stifled the Crimson in each third of the field.

Whether it was the Crimson's youth, the prospect of playing the No. 1 team in the nation, or simply Creighton's obvious talent at each position, Harvard could not find its rhythm throughout the match.

Creighton's Mike Bustos scored two goals and added an assist, as the Bluejays converted on six of their 10 shots on goal.

"For the first 20 minutes we played pretty well, but towards the end of the first half we started to make some mistakes towards the back," Hench said. "You can't make those mistakes against a No. 1 team like Creighton because they connect when they have the chance. Every ball hit the back of the net."

The Crimson kept it even for the first 10 minutes, but in the 11th minute the Jays split the Harvard defense with a ball out of the midfield and Creighton forward Brian Mullan connected with the back of the net only seconds later.

Creighton followed with two more goals in the first half, the second by midfielder Keith Sawarynski in the 20th minute and the third by midfielder Mike Tranchilla in the 41st.

Harvard played a flat four in the back, with Eyre on the left, Edwards on the right and Lobach and Kelly in the middle.

With Meagher between the posts, the five constitute one of the youngest defenses in the Ivy League.

"Youth can be both an advantage and a disadvantage. The young guys really want to work hard when they're in the game, like Colin's performance this weekend--he played hard and had a couple of great games," Meagher said. "But it's going to be a learning process and mistakes will be made, it's just part what this team is right now."

With Kerr in his first season and a number of underclassmen seeing large minutes, the Crimson's big question was whether the team could find communication and unity in its offense.

Although the Crimson put together a number of great chances in the game, as Hench and Petruccelli both got great looks at the net, the offense stalled at times, especially in the front third of the field.

In the second half, Creighton continued its pressure on Harvard's back four.

The Bluejays struck again in the 54th minute on a Bustos strike to go ahead, 4-0, and when the Crimson defense committed a foul only 20 yards from its goal line two minutes later, the Jays' fifth strike was in the making.

With a quick flick of his boot, Creighton captain Angel Rivillo hit a bending ball that barely cleared the Crimson wall and found the lower left corner of the Crimson goal, leaving Meagher with little to do but stare out at the Jays' celebration.

"It was a good shot--he put it in the one part of the wall that it could get through, in between two of my defenders' heads," Meagher said. "It was also a bit disappointing because we work on those set plays in practice, but the whole game was good for seeing what we need to work on to get to that level, to beat Creighton in the post-season."

Creighton's final goal, a penalty kick from Bustos in the 87th minute, came against back-up goalie Dan Mejias.

Mejias was one of the many young players who saw time in the latter part of the second half.

Seeing the game out of reach at 5-0, Kerr began playing his young bench. Sophomores Marko Soldo, Yoshio Kaneko and Matt Popa played for significant stretches of time, as did freshman Marc Baun.

Notes

Harvard will host B.U. tomorrow at 3 p.m. The Terriers (2-2-1) played Creighton to a 0-0 double-overtime tie Sunday at Ohiri Field.

B.U. also played a man down from the 25th minute on, as Ikey Umeh was whistled for a red card.