CHAMPIONSHIP BOUT: Spring Forward Into New Season

Skimming through The Crimson’s sports section yesterday, it was impossible not to be struck by just how great a time it is to be a Harvard sports fan. Just one look at www.ivyleaguesports.com confirms this fact, as the front page of that website is currently filled with Harvard athletes’ accomplishments and accolades. How quickly things change.

Just last month, things in Harvard athletics looked increasingly bleak, mirroring the New England winter that just wouldn’t seem to end.

To begin with, the men’s basketball team was struggling through a 4-23 season with arguably its best player sidelined for the season with a stress fracture in his foot.

The heavily touted men’s hockey team was failing to measure up to high preseason expectations, and had a losing record in the middle of February.

Then on the last day of the month of February, the most encouraging team of the winter, the Ivy League Champion men’s squash team, came up just short in their national championship quest, losing 5-4 to Trinity in a heartbreaking match in New Haven, Conn.

Undoubtedly, it was a tough winter for Harvard sports. In addition to the disappointments during the men’s hockey and basketball regular seasons, the women’s basketball team was unable to successfully defend its Ivy League crown, as Penn won the coveted spot in the NCAA tournament that goes along with the league championship.

But just as March has brought warmer weather to Cambridge, spring has undoubtedly sprung brightly for Harvard athletics. To begin with, over the weekend, senior wrestler Jesse Jantzen capped his remarkable Harvard career with a national championship in the 149-lb. weight category, just the second in Harvard history and the first since 1938. In addition, Jantzen was named the Most Outstanding Wrestler in the NCAA Tournament, finishing his amazing season with a record of 38-1.

Jantzen returned to Harvard on Sunday with a hero’s welcome at the Malkin Athletic Center (MAC), a celebration organized by the H-Club. Jantzen will now turn his focus to qualifying for the U.S. Olympic team, but Harvard wrestling fans can take heart from freshman Bode Ogunwole’s emergeance as a force in the heavyweight division late in the year.

Jantzen’s win was hardly the only huge victory this weekend for Harvard sports. Both the men’s and women’s hockey teams won the ECAC Championships. The No. 2 women’s team was one of the few bright spots of the winter, dominating opponents throughout the year, and their 6-1 victory over No. 3 St. Lawrence was no exception. The Crimson will take on St. Lawrence again in the Frozen Four at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center in Providence, R.I. on Friday at 8 p.m.

Perhaps the most remarkable story of the weekend, though, was the men’s hockey team’s incredible turnaround that finished with a 4-2 victory over Clarkson in the ECAC Championship on Saturday night, poignantly chronicled by Crimson beat writer extraordinaire Jon Paul Morosi in his column and game story yesterday. Morosi eats, breathes and sleeps Crimson hockey, as he has for the past four years, and for me to try to duplicate his season recap in a paragraph would be ridiculous, but let me just give two statistics. Harvard is 9-1-1 in its last 11 games, and has not lost in the month of March.

Before going out for the night on Saturday evening, many Harvard students were huddled around the few cable TVs on campus as Clarkson and Harvard remained knotted at 2 with under a minute remaining. The few dozen students who made the trek out to Albany, N.Y. were treated to an up-close view of captain Kenny Smith’s decisive goal with under a minute left to lift the Crimson to victory.

But it hasn’t only been the winter sports that have been so exciting in the month of March. The Harvard lacrosse team has gotten off to an encouraging 3-1 start, with freshman attackman Greg Cohen leading the way for the Crimson with 11 points in only four games. In addition, tri-captain goalie Jake McKenna was named the Ivy League Player of the Week last week for his fantastic 15-save performance to lead the Crimson to victory over No. 14 Massachusetts.

The baseball team has also showed encouraging signs, as their bats continued to come alive this weekend in Louisiana, as they finished the weekend 2-2, sweeping Michigan while dropping two to the Ragin’ Cajuns of Louisiana-Lafayette. Joe Walsh’s team will begin Ivy League play this weekend against Penn, and it has a great chance to take back the Ivy League crown that was stolen from them by Princeton last year during the 2004 campaign.

Now, I know spring break starts this weekend, but while you are off in Cancun or Aspen, keep in mind your classmates playing for national championships or practicing for their spring seasons. Even better, come out to Albany on Friday night at 5 p.m. before you leave to watch the men’s hockey team take on Maine in their first-round NCAA Championship game. If you don’t want to drive so far, head down to Providence to watch Katey Stone’s great women’s team in the Frozen Four on Friday night.

Now I know Crimson writers get up on their soapbox every so often and demand that you come out to support Harvard athletes more often, but this weekend really is an opportunity you might have only once in your college career. The men’s team travels to the NCAA Tournament for the third straight time, having lost in the first round each of the last two years, and for the third time to be the charm they just might need to have a crowd that will rival the large contingent that the Black Bears are sure to bring to Albany. And the women’s team has a very real chance to win only its second national championship in program history.

No matter how this weekend’s games turn out though, the future picture of Harvard athletics seems a lot rosier than it did a month ago. In addition to the lacrosse and baseball teams’ encouraging early season results, the football team’s future is bright, as Coach Tim Murphy will return almost every skill position player on offense to a team that when healthy was one of the Ivy League’s best a year ago. The basketball team made a lot of progress in the late stages of the year, and sophomore Matt Stehle—who was named Honorable Mention All-Ivy this year—will be joined in the frontcourt by seven-footer Brian Cusworth next season.

Let’s hope that this upcoming spring season will be the beginning of a long summer for Harvard sports.

—Staff writer Robert C. Boutwell can be reached at boutwel@fas.harvard.edu.