M. Soccer Proves Mettle With Pair of Non-League Wins

The Harvard men’s soccer team had two goals entering this season: win the Ivy championship and earn a postseason bid to the NCAA tournament.

While the campaign for the former has yet to begin, the Crimson (4-1-1) finished the main part of its quest for the latter with two key wins over northeastern rivals.

Yesterday, Harvard extended its win streak to three with a tough 2-0 road victory over UMass. Two days earlier on its home turf, the Crimson held on against Fairfield for the 2-1 win.

The victory on the road was the first for a Harvard team that is 3-0-1 at Ohiri Field this season.

“I think everyone really started to get into the habit of winning and you always enjoy that feeling,” said co-captain and senior goalie Ryan Johnson. “We are starting to understand what it takes—the energy that it takes—and it’s becoming a habit now.”

Harvard will look to continue its win streak again on the road next week against Yale—part of one of the longest stretches away from home that the Crimson will face all season.

HARVARD 2, UMASS 0

With a number of players suffering from injuries, the gamewinner yesterday came from an unexpected place.

Sophomore Jeremy Tchou—who only played in one contest all last season—scored his first collegiate goal to give Harvard the advantage. The Crimson put one more through and came away from Amherst with a 2-0 win over the Minutemen (3-5-0).

Tchou played the role of garbage collector when he found the ball from 10 yards away and knocked it into the back of the net for the unassisted goal.

“Jeremy scored a really big goal for us,” said captain and defender Will Craig. “He was playing really well and it was actually a pretty tough shot for him—he hit it with his off foot.”

Junior forward Charles Altchek—who has six goals on the season—and senior midfielder Nicholas Tornaritis did not start in a surprise move, but still played key roles in the victory.

“We did have five games in nine days and that’s a lot of the games and the guys are tired,” Craig said. “UMass had seen us play and knew who our starters were, so we thought we should throw a couple different things in like that.”

Nicholas Tornaritis finished the day, however, with one of the Crimson’s best lines—posting six shots and the other Harvard goal off an assist by his brother, Anthony Tornaritis. He played a key role in the Crimson’s offensive domination with 11 shots on goal to UMass’ three.

The shutout was the third for Johnson and Harvard’s defense.

HARVARD 2, FAIRFIELD 1

In the lead-up to its important contest versus UMass, Harvard had big fish to fry at home first.

Altchek’s prowess and quick strikes provided the offense the Crimson needed to beat Fairfield 2-1 on Friday. The Stags entered the contest eighth in the NSCAA New England rankings.

Both of Altchek’s scores—number five and six on the young season for the standout forward—came with a quick and smart decision in order to surprise Fairfield’s goalie, Andrew Frankel. Frankel had been named the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Defensive Player of the Week three times so far this season, but Altchek beat him with surprise tactics.

With just over 20 minutes left in the opening half, senior Brian Charnock played the ball up into the Stags’ penalty box. Altchek used his shoulder to knock it down—a play that led to a number of Fairfield players pleading for a handball call—and then on the bounce, struck the ball out of the air and into the back of the net.

“Not giving up the lead like we did against Furman is very important,” Altchek said, “For the team mentally and for everyone”

Nine minutes later, Altchek used a strikingly different tactic when he ran down a pass from Nicholas Tornaritis. Rather than trying to pound the ball in, he surprised everyone—from the fans down to Frankel—by easily lobbing it into the air. Frankel did not even react as the ball arced perfectly over his head for a two-goal lead.

From there, all aspects of the game seemed to go downhill for Harvard. With all of the momentum and seemingly ready to just overrun the Stags, the Crimson had a few mental lapses down the stretch that almost cost it the victory.

In the 34th minute, Fairfield clawed back into the contest when its leading goalscorer, Vasilis Androutsos, controlled a pass on the right side of the goal and one-timed the ball past Johnson.

In the second half, the Stags were not able to muster much offense themselves, but nearly tied the game because of Harvard’s lapses in concentration.

“Their first goal changed our momentum and kept them within a chance of tying the game for sure,” Harvard coach John Kerr said. “They did have some opportunities to equalize, but we fell asleep in that moment and paid the price.”

One of the closest of these chances came on a pass into the left side of the box. With momentary miscommunication, Fairfield’s Taylor Warwick was all alone as a lob found him on the left side of the goal, but his one-timer sailed high over the crossbar.

“It’s something we are working on, to be honest,” Kerr said. “That is, to keep a focus throughout the 90 minutes and understanding that [a mental lapse] can happen to us.”

Nevertheless, the goal Harvard gave up to Fairfield was only the second that Johnson and the defense have allowed the entire season.

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