Crimson Looking to Newcomers for Strength

By GABRIEL M. VELEZ and

ABIGAIL M. BAIRD

Crimson Staff WriteRS

The Harvard men’s soccer team will take the field on Friday missing three of its stalwarts from last season. But unlike most college teams’, this facelift cannot be chalked up to graduation.

Instead, the Crimson (0-1-0) lost two of its offensive stars—junior Matt Hoff and sophomore Mike Fucito—to a year off. In addition, junior midfielder Tom Stapleton is having trouble with his visa to get back into the United States from England.

“This is a totally different team with a different identity this year,” coach John Kerr said. “[Hoff’s] and [Fucito’s] are big shoes to fill.”

At the heart of that identity lies the team’s defensive unit, which returns three players in the back, among them second-year-captain Will Craig and senior goaltender Ryan Johnson.

“The first thought on our team this year is being solid defensively,” Johnson said. “I don’t think we have the kind of team that will score three or four goals a game consistently, but we have a team that has the ability to get 10 or 11 shutouts this year.”

Last season, Harvard averaged 1.12 goals against and a total of five shutouts en route to a 9-7-1 record overall. Defense, however, can only carry the Crimson so far in the Ivy League, as all the top contenders are able to shut each other out on any given day.

During last year’s Ivy campaign, Harvard played even better defense with a .86 goals against average, and yet it only finished with an even 3-3-1 record and fifth place. The Ivy title has remained up for grabs in recent years with teams: Princeton, Brown, Penn, and Dartmouth have won the championship recently. Even one tie game can sometimes mean the title for a team.

“No one knows who’s going to be the front runner for the Ivy League,” Kerr said. “We’re always in the race for the title. It’s exciting because anything can happen.”

But as four out of seven Ivy games are home at Ohiri Field, the Crimson is particularly excited. While a tie game can break a title run, home field advantage can break a tie. Harvard is also eager to face Yale and Dartmouth after last year’s painful losses.

“Everyone on the team last year is really looking forward to [them]” Johnson said. “We lost both by one goal and we felt like they slipped away from us.”

To balance a defense looking for 10 shutouts this season, the offensive burden will fall squarely on the shoulders of a mix of experienced returning players and rotating freshman.

“I think all the seniors really decided that we need to step forward and lead by example with our discipline and focus—especially with a lot of the younger players,” said senior forward Nicholas Tornaritis.

“We are really taking it upon ourselves as a senior class to really try to focus and keep a level of consistency.”

Five new faces saw playing time—and four started—in Harvard’s opening loss to Vermont last week, and the trend will continue all season as Kerr looks for significant contributors from the incoming class.

At least at the season’s start, the freshmen—along with some returning players who have only seen limited action in past years—will all share playing time in what will be a constantly changing offensive attack.

In the last two years, Fucito and Hoff—both Ivy League Rookies of the Year—saw consistent stretches of time on the field. This season, it will be up to all five freshmen to play that role.

“[The freshman] are going to need to come right in and step-up,” Johnson said.

“There are probably going to be four or five of them on the field at all times—it’s going to be a learning experience for them throughout the year.”

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