Big Red Steam Rolls Host Crimson

In its first home Ivy League contest of the season, the No. 16 Harvard men’s lacrosse team had a chance to knock off the defending league champs for the first time in eight tries.

Unfortunately for the Crimson, No. 6 Cornell decided to turn in one of its most complete games of the season.

In a game in which Harvard (4-3, 1-1 Ivy) was out-matched in nearly every facet of the contest, the Big Red beat the Crimson by a score of 10-3 on Saturday afternoon at Jordan Field.

It was the eighth consecutive time Cornell (7-1, 2-1 Ivy) had beaten Harvard, putting the Big Red back on track for a repeat conference title after its first loss of the season last week.

“They’re consistently a good shooting team, except for last week against Penn,” Harvard coach Scott Anderson said. “They had an awful lot of possessions and we didn’t pick up the ball, we didn’t clear the ball efficiently, and we didn’t look as poised as we’ve been.”

Cornell used the second and third quarters to break open the action completely against a Crimson team that trailed just 3-2 after the first frame. Junior midfielder Evan Calvert increased his team lead in points with a score 9:41 into the first quarter that tied things at one, while junior attackman Greg Cohen, who ranks second on the team in points, knocked in a goal off a Big Red turnover in its own zone with 3:43 to play that made it a 2-2 game. The two goals were the last that Harvard scored until more than four minutes had gone by in the fourth quarter. In the same span, Cornell scored seven straight to take an insurmountable 9-2 advantage.

“Their offense came to play and their defense did too,” Cohen said. “Even when you did get a good shot, it wasn’t really a good shot—it was always contested.”

Big Red netminder Matt McMonagle, who made a season-high 14 saves, made it difficult for the Crimson to get anything started offensively.

“The bottom line is not their ten goals, it’s our three goals,” Anderson said.

Cohen agreed.

“He played out of his mind today,” he said of McMonagle.

In addition to its lackluster offensive performance, Harvard had trouble keeping the ball out of its own zone.

“Cornell had a lot of possessions,” Cohen said. “I think that was a product of Cornell’s defense playing really good and our offense not playing as well as we could have played.”

Big Red midfielders Max Seibald and Joe Boulukos both had hat tricks during the 7-0 Cornell run, which finally ended with 10:56 to play on Calvert’s second goal of the afternoon. A final Big Red tally with 3:31 left made the final margin seven goals, the Crimson’s worse loss of the season. It was also the second-most goals given up by Harvard all season.

“Our goalies played well, [but] I don’t think it was the best game for either one of them,” Anderson said. “They both hung in there and gave us a chance.”

It wasn’t enough against an efficient Cornell offense that boasted two of the nation’s top ten scorers.

“We could have played harder,” Anderson said.

Still, Anderson remained optimistic about the odds on the team’s revival.

”That’s something you can turn around pretty quickly if you really believe in it,” he said. “I think we do, so we’ll find out.”

—Staff writer Malcom A. Glenn can be reached at mglenn@fas.harvard.edu.