Season Ends on High Note

In many ways, senior Jeff Chivers’ season has epitomized the entire 2005 campaign for the Harvard men’s soccer team.

For Chivers, a promising start to the season was interrupted with a serious injury: a broken ankle in the third game. He made his triumphant return on Saturday, starting in the season’s final game between the Crimson (6-8-2, 2-4-1 Ivy) and Penn (9-6-3, 2-4-1) just in time to win, 3-2, at Ohiri Field.

Harvard coach John Kerr discussed the situation with Penn coach Randy Fuller before the game began. Chivers started, and then was immediately taken out after Harvard received the opening ball and kicked it out of bounds.

“We wanted to salute Jeff and his senior year, despite being out with an unfortunate injury,” Kerr said. “It was a nice acknowledgement to Jeff.”

With Chivers in the game, all seven Crimson seniors started the contest, though Nicholas Tornaritis made the most noticeable impact on the field. His two goals helped Harvard edge a Quaker team that had been ranked as high as No. 18 nationally.

The first score came just a few minutes into the opening half, when Tornaritis was the first player to gain possession of a ball put into the box by freshman Marcel Perl. He lofted it up and over the charging Penn goalie for a one-goal lead.

Tornaritis notched his second goal of the game—and 12th of his career—late in the second half to give the Crimson the decisive lead. He finished his career with one more goal than his twin brother and teammate, Anthony.

“They have been big players for us their entire careers and they really put this program on the map,” Kerr said. “Last year, they had 17 goals between the two of them. This year, things were a little harder because everyone was keying in on them.”

Following Nicholas’ first score, the large crowd at Ohiri roared, prompting Kerr to yell, “Keep us going!”

And throughout the game, the offense worked well together as passes were mostly crisp and Harvard mounted a number of chances on goal.

“Maybe it was not the best timing for it all to come together now at the end,” Kerr said. “But that’s life. It absolutely helps the morale of the team going forward into next season.”

In the second half, the crowd’s cheers played an increasingly larger role as the game became a close and tense affair.

The Quakers brought the game within reach in the 10th minute when the Crimson made a mistake on its coverage off of a free kick. The ball found an unguarded Derrick Jumper on the left side of the goal, and he passed it in to Kevin Unger for the score.

After Harvard regained its two-goal lead, it appeared to put on the cruise control and coast to the victory. But after senior Bo Clayton made a run and got a shot off on goal, Penn struck quickly on the counterattack and Omid Shokoufandeh managed to get the ball around Crimson goalie Ryan Johnson and into the net.

With the Quakers in reach, the play became more fierce in the final minute—but when Johnson collected a shot with under half a minute left to play, the game ended, and the six seniors left Ohiri Field with their first Senior Day victory there since 1999.

“It was tremendous especially after the frustrating season we had through the middle portion of our schedule,” Craig said. “[Winning Senior Day], that adds even more to it.”

—Staff writer Gabriel M. Velez can be reached at gmvelez@fas.harvard.edu.