No. 8 UMass Outguns Crimson

It was a short-lived winning streak.

Coming off a stirring 11-4 upset over then-No. 16 Yale, which ended a four-game slide for Harvard, the Crimson (5-6, 2-3 Ivy) returned to the wrong side of the scoreboard, dropping an 8-5 decision to No. 8 UMass (10-2, 4-1 ECAC).

A third-period scoring frenzy by the Minutemen helped to topple what began well for the Crimson. Assisted by Harvard sophomore midfielder Adam Mahfouda, freshman attackman Zach Widbin scored the game’s first goal at 9:27 in the first period, and at the end of the second period, UMass led 2-1.

The Minutemen offense seemed to capitalize on a third-period goalie shake-up, when Evan O’Donnell, Harvard’s starting goalie, was injured.

In just under five minutes, the UMass squad scored five goals. After that barrage, freshman attackman Brooks Scholl scored at 3:07 with an assist from junior midfielder Sean Kane during a man-advantage.

The Crimson rallied to score three more goals in the fourth period. At 11:28, junior midfielder Jake Samuelson drove across the center and shot from the right side of the goal to score.

At 5:43, Samuelson struck again, driving down the middle and bouncing a shot past the goalie. The Crimson scored for the final time at 3:00, when junior attackman Steve Cohen scored off an assist from Widbin.

Unfortunately for the Crimson, it was too little, too late. The victory over Harvard clinched the Minutemen’s 20th New England title.

One of the game’s most crucial moments came at 13:50 in the third period, when O’Donnell injured himself and had to exit the game. According to Widbin, the accident was due to a “speed bump behind the goal.”

“Running back here, I know that that you can stub your toe and easily sprain your ankle,” he said. “It finally got somebody today.”

Tri-captain attackman Mike McBride echoed that concern.

“Defensively, we played one of our best games of the year,” he said. “We had an unfortunate accident of our goalie going down. Evan was playing an unbelievable game. And that definitely affected us, but if you look at UMass’s past five or six games, they’ve been scoring 13 to 14 goals a game, so I think our defense played outstanding today. It was ground balls and shooting poorly [that] really affected us today.”

McBride also was quick to credit junior Colin Macleod’s work filling in for O’Donnell in goal.

“He is a tremendous athlete,” said McBride. “He is a kid who came in as an attackman and blew out both his shoulders freshman year, and for him to come out here, and against one of the best offenses in the country, and to make the saves he did—[that] he only let in two goals is pretty unbelievable.

“It really shows his athleticism and his commitment to the team,” McBride said. “He’s a great kid, and I’m glad he stuck with it, and it really paid off today. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get the goals to go with it.”

After the tough loss to the Minutemen, life doesn’t get much easier for the Harvard players. The Crimson’s final two games are on the road against strong teams.

This Saturday, Harvard will battle Hofstra—just outside the top-20—and the Crimson will then close out its season against No. 11 Dartmouth next Saturday.