Crimson Starts Strong, Falters in Ivy League Play

What started out as a season in which anything was possible quickly became a rebuilding one, as the Harvard men’s lacrosse team wasted a 4-1 start by dropping seven of its last nine contests to finish 6-8 overall and 1-6 in the Ancient Eight.

Despite an opening day setback, the young squad went on a four-game tear led by sophomore midfielder Jason Duboe, who finished first on the team with 32 points on 26 goals and six assists. Harvard entered Ivy League play ranked No. 19 in the country.

“Our defense really carried us through the wins,” Duboe said. “They didn’t give up more than six goals throughout the win streak. That was a credit to our offense, too—we possessed the ball and did a good job of controlling the game in the fourth quarter.”

But it was the league that turned out to be Harvard’s downfall, as the team opened the Ivy campaign with the seniors’ first-ever loss to Penn.

Freshman phenom Dean Gibbons peaked at the right moment, giving the Crimson a shot in games against a tough schedule that included eventual tournament teams Denver and perennial juggernaut Duke in between No. 7 Cornell, No. 15 Princeton, and No. 18 Brown.

Gibbons ended his rookie campaign second on the team with 28 points split evenly between goals and assists, but his efforts fell short—the team failed to win a single game in the tough six-week span.

“We had a nice start to the season, but then we got to a point where the level of team we were playing was better,” head coach John Tillman said. “We faced a much tougher schedule, and everyone on that schedule was very strong. We knew it was going to be a challenge...We were in it for most of those games, too, it was just a matter of trying to get over the hump.”

The toughest task for the newly-appointed Tillman was finding a way to get his offense and defense to thrive at the same time. With both sides of the ball consisting mostly of underclassmen, Harvard’s first new coach in almost 20 years brought in specialists to help his squad on ‘D’ and at the faceoff X.

“I think the guys made great progress,” Tillman said. “We’d lost our top three or four scorers from the year before, we didn’t have anyone that had taken a faceoff. It’s a possession game, and when you’re young on the offensive end and at the X it can be tough...Our guys were learning to play a very new style, a very different style.”

With the difficult system, both play at the X and on the defensive end improved but struggled against the tougher competition. As junior goalie Joe Pike shined with 111 saves before succumbing to a late-season injury, the defense in front of him struggled to play a full 60 minutes.

In a heated contest against Princeton, the defense squandered a late four-goal lead by giving up six scores over the last 19 minutes. The defeat was one of four single-goal losses over the course of the season.

Luckily for the Crimson, youth become veterans, and next year’s squad will feature a number of them, as the team is losing no starters to graduation.

“Our age was definitely a factor in terms of trying to gel on offense,” Duboe said. “Next year, now that we’ve been through those games and seen what works, what doesn’t, especially in those one-goal games, we can jump in...Next year we’ll really know what to do in close, tight games. What will define us is how we do in those one-goal games. Those turn around [this year] and we’re probably a tournament team. We’re definitely looking forward to turning things around next year.”

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