Gibbons Scores Four in Defeat

The Harvard men’s lacrosse team fought a hard tug-of-war game against No. 14 Brown but came up on the losing end of an 8-7 Bears victory, despite a four-goal night by freshman attacker Dean Gibbons—a career high.

“In the last three games, I’ve been really impressed with the amount of confidence [Gibbons has] been having. Every time he gets the ball he believes he’s going to score,” co-captain Nick La Fiura said.

Under the lights in Providence, the Crimson solved its faceoff issues, winning 14-of-19 and outshot Brown, 38-18, yet still skidded to its sixth consecutive loss. Five of Harvard’s defeats have come at the hands of nationally ranked teams.

Never out of striking distance, Harvard did not trail by more than two goals, and the majority of the game was spent dead even. The Crimson took the lead briefly twice but, in the end, the Bears remained unbeaten in Ivy play and improved to 9-2 overall, extending their win streak to eight games.

“This is a tough one,” La Fiura said. “We were with them the entire game. We were just trading goals the whole time though I would say on both sides of the ball we had a pretty good game. We outshot them almost 2-1 but the biggest difference in the game was that their goalie just had a great game and we just had trouble shooting around him. Other than that we outplayed them. At the end of the day it came down to one or two plays.”

Freshman midfielder Christian Oberbeck won 7-of-9 contests at the X and scooped up a team-leading six ground balls. Junior midfielder Nick Smith took 7-of-10.

“Our faceoffs today were great, Nick Smith did great and Christian Oberbeck came in providing a great help for Nick when he’s gassed,” La Fiura said. “It’s a pretty good one-two punch we’ve got.”

Sophomore midfielder Jason Duboe, Harvard’s leading scorer, added two goals and two assists, while senior midfielder Zach Widbin chipped in his own goal and assist in the hardscrabble effort.

The game was decided in the final five minutes. Deadlocked after three periods and with 4:10 remaining in the last, both teams dug down and Brown called on sophomore midfielder Zach Caldwell. The sophomore found the net at 4:10 for his fourth goal in the second half to jump up 7-6. After assisting Caldwell, sophomore attacker Thomas Muldoon tacked on an insurance tally during a man-up opportunity with 2:14 remaining.

In a last ditch effort, with eleven seconds on the clock, Gibbons scored an unassisted goal, his fourth score of the day and the tenth of his college career, to slim the margin to one. Time ran out before the Crimson got a chance to knot the score again.

“It’s tough,” Gibbons said. “We came close. A couple of things didn’t go our way—just a couple of lucky shots at the end of the game. The guys on offense gave me a good opportunity to make the shots. I was kind of just finishing what they started.”

In the first period, the Bears struck first with 8:03 to play in the stanza. Harvard answered four minutes later, but Kyle Hollingsworth helped his team pull ahead with a goal at 0:11. Duboe, on an assist by Zach Widbin, tied the game three minutes into the second period, then turned around to assist Gibbons on his second goal of the game. Eight seconds later, Brown tied it up again.

On the half, the Crimson outshot the Bears 17-8, won all but one faceoff and succeeded in every clear attempt. Harvard forced Brown goalie Jordan Burke to make seven saves but allowed four extra man opportunities to pass by. The score was an even, 3-3.

After intermission, Caldwell came alive two minutes into the half but Gibbons and Duboe put up goals for the Crimson to go ahead for the second and final time. Caldwell erased the Crimson lead at 1:05 remaining in the period to leave the score, again, tied.

Caldwell knocked in an unassisted goal to go up in the 4th, 6-5, but Widbin matched him sending the game to the final five a locked contest. After the Caldwell-Muldoon scoring dynamo connected twice, there was little left to do in the two minutes remaining. After Gibbons eeked out a final goal, the score went into the books, 8-7.

“A lot of their goals came from a bunch of different things,” La Fiura said. “It wasn’t just a one-on-one breakdown with anybody. It’s hard to say but two of the four goals [Caldwell scored] were of of transition or ground ball situations.”

In the second half, Harvard held the advantage in shots, 21-10, ground balls, 17-13, and face-offs 7-of-11.

“Looking at statistics we had them beat,” Gibbons said. “A couple of things didn’t go our way but that just means we need to come out and work harder and hopefully learn from it for next game, bounce back and get a win.”

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