Quakers Thwart Late Comeback

The Harvard men’s lacrosse team mounted a late rally to chase Penn March 22 but ultimately took a 12-10 loss in its Ivy opener, spiking the Crimson’s four-game win streak.

“When you’re playing behind the whole game and you’re playing way too much ‘D’ its going to catch up with you,” senior midfielder Zach Widbin said.

After a 5-0 Quaker run in the third period, Harvard muscled four goals in the final frame, fired eight shots-on-goal—one of which caught the post—and succeeded in every clear attempt, never surrendering possession on transition.

“It was a testament to our team’s character that we didn’t quit,” said sophomore midfielder Jason Duboe, who netted two goals in the effort. “Time sort of ran out on us. They built a pretty good lead and they were definitely a very slick team. But two more [shots] fall and we take it to overtime.”

Harvard entered the game ranked 19th on the heels of a four-game winning streak. Duboe and sophomore attackers Travis Burr and Jesse Fehr each scored a pair of goals and junior midfielder Max Motschwiller tallied three points on a goal and two assists.

“We beat them the past three years,” Widbin said. “I hadn’t lost to them yet, and that’s a big motivational factor. They were in their home stadium and that only helps their cause. They came out with a lot of energy and jumped on us quickly.”

Junior midfielder Nick Smith opened the game with an unassisted goal and claimed five ground balls, leading his team.

“Smith has battled through some injuries this year, but he definitely comes to play every day,” Duboe said. “He doesn’t really care how it looks, he just gets the job done. A team really needs guys like him.”

In the first frame, the Quakers outshot the Crimson 13-3 and forced eight turnovers. Despite this imbalance at the end of the first period, Harvard trailed by just one. Junior goalkeeper Joe Pike made two key saves.

“Pike keeps us positive and keeps us in games,” Duboe said. “He’s basically one of the main reasons we’ve had success. He’s kept us in a lot of games and given the offense an opportunity to win and always puts us in that position.”

At intermission the teams were tied after a Harvard surge in the last minutes of the frame. Motschwiller put an end to a 4-0 Penn run with 7:17 remaining in the half and then set up Burr to spur the three-goal Crimson rebuttal that evened the score at halftime. Freshman midfielder Francis Ellis locked the teams at 5-5 with Harvard’s fifth even-strength goal of the half less than three minutes later.

“We did a really good job fighting back,” Widbin said. “There was a tough stretch in the third quarter where the ball was just bouncing their way and we weren’t coming up with ground balls.”

Over the course of play, the Quakers claimed 24 ground balls to Harvard’s 15. In the third frame the Quakers dominated that tally 7-1, as well as faceoffs 8-1 and shots 12-6.

Fehr seized a man-up opportunity in the first minute of the fourth. After almost seven scoreless minutes in which Penn took three shots and was on the receiving end of two turnovers, the Quakers struck with a goal of their own. Just 11 seconds later, Duboe sparked Harvard’s last ditch effort with 8:03 minutes remaining and down 7-12, epitomizing the team’s never-say-die attitude.

“The key to our team is hustle,” Widbin said. “We’re a blue collar team.”

But the lopsided third period ended up haunting the Crimson, and an edge in groundballs and faceoffs for the Quakers led to an advantage in possession that tipped the scales in Penn’s favor.

“We need to stay hungry through all points of the game even if we’re up or down,” Duboe said. “We need to play every quarter like it’s a new quarter and try to win every five minutes of every game. When we win these small battles we’ll come out on the upper end of some of these close games we’ve been playing.”

—Staff writer Elizabeth A. Joyce can be reached at eajoyce@fas.harvard.edu.