One Down, Five to Go as Crimson Advances

The Harvard men’s soccer team was the top-scoring team in the country during the regular season for a reason.

After the Crimson (14-4-0, 6-1-0 Ivy) was shut out by Binghamton and down 1-0 at halftime, it fought back to win the first round of the NCAA Tournament by a 2-1 final at Ohiri Field on Saturday. Harvard’s victory over the Bearcats (9-7-0) earned it a trip to Los Angeles to play No. 8 seed UCLA in the second round.

“They shut down our weapons in the first half,” Crimson coach John Kerr said. “I was just grateful that they didn’t score the second goal. Once we got ourselves back to halftime only being 1-0 down, we knew we just had to calm down and play our style of soccer and stick to what we have down all season long.”

Harvard put consistent pressure on the Binghamton defense throughout the second half of play, earning seven corners—after having none in the opening frame—and peppering the Bearcats’ defense with nine shots.

“At halftime, we spoke amongst ourselves and with the coaches about how we needed to raise our level, but at the same time, be confident in our own abilities knowing that we would score goals,” captain Charles Altchek said.

The breakthrough for the win came on a spectacular play by the Crimson rookies. Chey Im received the ball in the midfield and threaded a perfect pass straight up the gut of the offensive zone to freshman André Akpan. Akpan, who was very nearly offsides, took the ball almost all the way to the end line on the right side of the goal and then launched a shot that nudged off of the left post and bounced over the goal line for the 2-1 lead.

“[Im] played a beautiful ball right to my feet,” Akpan said. “I thought I was offsides, actually, but then everyone was yelling, ‘keep going, you are onsides.’ I just took a shot and hit it front post.”

Akpan’s goal capped a second-half offensive charge by Harvard, but the game was won in the midfield trenches, where Harvard took control of the game.

While earlier in the week Akpan and Altchek had been named Ivy Rookie of the Year and Player of the Year, respectively, it was a less heralded star who was at the heart of the comeback against the Bearcats on Saturday.

Sophomore Mike Fucito won balls all over the field and was the Crimson’s most lethal threat through the middle throughout the game, and his hustle and speed earned the momentum-changing goal that tied the game in the 12th minute of the second frame.

Sophomore John Stamatis fought hard to prevent the Binghamton defense from getting the ball, and when he slid around a Bearcats defender to cross the ball right in front of the goalmouth, he found a streaking Fucito, who slid in, got enough of his foot on the ball, and hit the wide open net to knot the score at 1-1.

“John just made a great run, and I saw it the whole time,” Fucito said. “I just had to hit it to know it was going in. It really lifted us; we knew that once we got the first one, we were going to get more.”

The energy and skill Fucito showcased on Saturday earned him audible respect from fans and coach alike. Midway through the second half, fans began screaming at Harvard players to give the ball to Fucito.

“Give it to Fucito,” Kerr yelled at his midfielders in the 16th minute after halftime.

Defensively, the Crimson showed some of its inexperience in the season’s biggest game to date. The young back line of freshman Kwaku Nyamekye, and sophomores Marcel Perl, Peter Glenmullen and Michael Giammanco at times let the Bearcats offense have easy runs, and mishit a number of attempted clearances.

“If they have a slight weakness, it’s the pace of the back four, so we tried to use our pace to get in behind them, which we were quite successful at,” Binghamton coach Paul Marco said.

“The wind did play a big role,” Altchek said. “[On] our clearances out of defense in the first half, we had a hard time getting it out of our zone, and they were able to come back and attack.”

But late in the second half, the unit became more airtight, with Perl on the right taking a key role in keeping the ball in the offensive zone and Nyamekye making a number of efforts that stopped short Binghamton’s runs.

The second half would have been a lot more desperate for the Harvard offense and defense had it not been for the play of junior Adam Hahn in net in the first half. While he struggled at times clearing the ball, he allowed only one goal during the Bearcats’ onslaught.

“I felt our game plan was working—we created enough opportunities to score goals in the first half. To Harvard’s credit, they rose to the occasion,” Marco said.

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