SEASON RECAP: Uneven League Play Plagues Harvard After Slow Start

The best part about beginning the season is the fact that possibilities are endless. Despite last year’s disappointing 6-6 finish and 11-4 loss against Syracuse in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, the Harvard men’s lacrosse team had hope on its side.

With the top two scorers from the previous year—seniors Evan Calvert and Greg Cohen—returning and one of the top faceoff men in the country lining up at the X in senior co-captain John Henry Flood, this was the year.

But then the season began and things deteriorated from there, all the way to a 5-7 record. Starting off the spring with a slate of tough opponents, the Crimson stumbled to four straight losses, coming close to victory in only one of the four.

Ohio State was the first team to tee off against Harvard, and it gave the Crimson—especially the defense—a wakeup call. Sophomore Joe Pike returned to the goal after posting an impressive freshman season splitting his time with Evan O’Donnell. His role on a young and depleted ‘D’ loaded with question marks was just about the only secure one before the season’s start.

After losing All-American Tom Mikula and Peter Doyle, among others, to graduation, the new defensive corps is talented, but young and inexperienced.

Freshmen and sophomores, such as Billy Geist and Eric Posner, frequented the box.

The squad gave up 55 goals in the first four games, many coming off of high-percentage shots from just outside the crease.

“Even though Joe let in a lot of goals, he played great, not letting in shots he’s not supposed to,” senior Brian Mahler said in the middle of the season. “We really need to focus on our defense again and make sure we’re not giving up shots from 10 yards, because no goalie can stop those.”

It took an extra-minutes fight against Penn—and senior Carle Stenmark netting a goal with just over a minute left in overtime—to cap the losing streak and bring victory back to the Crimson’s side.

Things looked to be turning around in Harvard’s favor as the squad rattled off its second win in a row against Denver just a week later. But success was short-lived.

Competing in one of the toughest leagues in the country, the squad had to face the No. 1 team in the nation, Cornell, as well as perennial juggernaut Princeton. Neither game was close.

In the middle of it all, the Crimson decided to take on a new mission: fewer shots, better shots, more efficient play.

“One of the stats early was we were outshooting opponents and then losing the game,” coach Scott Anderson said. “That’s not a smart way to play. We talked about being more judicious, about what are good shoots, shooting to score, not just getting the ball on net, working the ball more, looking for good opportunity.”

Even if it didn’t work to perfection, Harvard upped its game to recover to some extent and won three of its last five games to finish at 5-7.

The Crimson was also plagued by untimely injuries. Calvert started the first few games on the bench due to a sprained ankle. Sophomore Max Motschwiller went down in garbage time against Brown, while junior midfielder Zach Widbin also had a shortened season.

Calvert’s loss was evident when Harvard scored just four goals against the Buckeyes. Motschwiller and Widbin were also sorely missed in the final games, as the core could not find any kind of rhythm.

The one constant throughout the season was Flood, who gave the Crimson an incredible number of possessions and opportunities. The senior took all of Harvard’s 258 faceoffs, winning 173 of them for a .671 percentage.

And now that the defense has finally begun to mature, the offense will suffer many losses to graduation in 2007. From the looks of things, next year will be another uphill climb.

—Staff writer Madeleine I. Shapiro can be reached at mshapiro@fas.harvard.edu.