Men's Soccer Continues Offensive Woes, Falls to Big Green

Playing in Hanover Saturday night, the Harvard men’s soccer team went up early again. But, as has been the case all too often this season, its opponent’s offensive aggressiveness and the Crimson’s lack thereof led to a large shot discrepancy and a third straight 2-1 defeat.

In the loss, the Crimson (4-6-5, 1-2-2 Ivy) was outshot, 16-4, by the Big Green (7-6-1, 2-3-0), continuing a troubling theme for a team that started out so well but now finds itself officially eliminated from the Ivy League title race.

“Credit to them, they played to their strengths,” Harvard coach Carl Junot said. “I didn’t think we had enough quality opportunities on goal, so overall the result is very disappointing.”

Once again, it was sophomore Brian Rogers who proved to be the Crimson’s lone offensive threat, as the team extended its streak of scoring one goal or less to 13 consecutive games—just two of which have been wins.

For the third consecutive match, Harvard got on the board first but gave up two second-half scores and was unable to come back late. In each of the three contests, the two goals came within a five-minute span of each other.

“I think it’s a mental thing,” Rogers said. “It comes from our being young. We get out to leads because we’re talented. As the game goes on, we kind of lose our mental composure...we rarely give up a goal to the other team because they’re very good, [rather] it is from our team having mental lapses.”

Rogers started things off for the Crimson, scoring on the team’s first shot attempt of the game at 34:49. The forward took a cross pass from senior forward Alex Chi in the left side of the box and drilled the ball past Dartmouth goalie Lyman Missimer to give Harvard the 1-0 advantage. It was the forward’s team-leading fourth goal and ninth point on the year.

“It was a good team goal,” Rogers said. “Chi played a great layoff back to me, and I just had to swat it by the keeper.”

The teams did not score again until the midway point of the second half, when the Big Green began to increase the pressure on the Crimson defense and junior goalie Austin Harms.

“In the first part of the second half, we did a good job applying pressure, being defensively organized,” Junot said. “We weren’t especially dangerous in the attack, but we didn’t allow Dartmouth to become dangerous.”

That all changed at 70:08, when Big Green junior defenseman Nick Pappas took a corner kick from senior forward Andrew Olsen and headed the ball over an extended Harms and into the corner of the net to tie the game at one. Junot called the goal Harms’ “first real goalkeeping error of the season.”

Just over a minute later, junior forward Lucky Mkosana got open on a breakaway and beat Harms with a shot to the lower left corner of the net, giving Dartmouth a 2-1 advantage that it would not surrender.

“I thought in the first half we put up a good performance,” Rogers said. “After Dartmouth scored their first goal we kind of hung our heads, and then at that point their second goal was kind of inevitable.”

Despite the loss, Harms was solid on the whole, making seven saves in the contest.

“Overall Austin did very well,” Junot said. “Dartmouth played very direct, so a lot of crosses were sent at Austin, a lot of corner kicks...[he] was very good, made some crucial saves.”

After the game, the coach also complimented the play of Rogers and freshman forward Connor McCarthy on the offensive side of the ball.

Missimer managed two saves for Dartmouth, as the Big Green outshot the Crimson, 10-3, on net. Freshman midfielder Gabe Hoffman-Johnson and Pappas had four shots each for Dartmouth, while Olsen added three and Mkosana attempted two. Four players took one shot for the Crimson.

Though the defeat officially eliminated Harvard from the race for an Ivy League title, and with it their only realistic chance of an NCAA tournament birth, the Crimson will now be forced play the role of spoiler in its final two games of the season. But Rogers said he nonetheless hoped to help the team’s senior class finish its career on a high note.

“A lot of the motivation is to send our seniors off right,” Rogers said. “I think sending them off with two wins in a row would be great, and also I think it’s really important that we do well in these last two games in order to build momentum for next year.”

—Staff writer Scott A. Sherman can be reached at ssherman13@college.harvard.edu.