No. 10 Big Red Poses Big Problem For Crimson Lax

Bouncing back after a big loss is always tough, but the No. 15 Harvard men’s lacrosse team faces an especially tough task as it looks to rebound from its worst defeat in three years.

After a 14-5 thrashing last Friday night at the hands of No. 7 Duke, the Crimson (5-3, 1-1 Ivy) travels to Ithaca tomorrow to take on the defending national runner-up, No. 10 Cornell (7-2, 2-1 Ivy) at 1 pm.

“It’s definitely a huge game for us,” sophomore attack Jeff Cohen said. “They’re one of the teams to beat in our league, so we’d love to get them this year.”

To win, Harvard freshman goalie Harry Krieger will have to stop a high-powered Big Red offense that has scored over 18 goals twice this season. Despite giving up 14 scores, Krieger made a career-high 17 saves against Duke, earning him Ivy Rookie of the Week honors.

“Cornell plays a different system than Duke,” senior defenseman Ben Smith said. “They’re a little bit more free-flowing. It’s not as much about set plays—they kind of just feed off each other. It’s a little hectic and disorganized, so we’re going to have to communicate well, play very tough on ball, and make it difficult for their players to do what they want.”

The Cornell attack is led by senior Ryan Hurley, who has 26 goals on the year, and sophomore Rob Pannell, who has 15 goals and 26 assists.

Hurley is second in the conference with 2.89 goals per game, and Pannell is first with three assists and 4.67 points per contest.

The defense trying to stop that duo may be without its leader, co-captain Billy Geist, who is questionable after getting injured against the Blue Devils.

“We’ve got to play as a unit,” Smith said. “I think we’re going to try to simplify things a bit. We’re going to play to our strengths.”

Coming off a season-low in goals against Duke, the Crimson offense will need to recover if it is to keep up with a Big Red attack that averages a league-high 23.56 shots on goal per game.

“I think offensively we’re okay,” Cohen said. “What we really need to worry about more is getting the ball into the opposite end of the field, because that includes clearing the ball better, picking up more ground balls, [and] winning faceoffs. I think if we do those things we’ll be able to put up the big goals on offense that we’ve been putting up all year.”

Cohen (20 goals) and Dean Gibbons (19 goals) have led the attack throughout the season. Sophomore Terry White (six goals in his past three games) has helped pick up the slack, and classmate Kevin Vaughan has contributed five goals in his past four games.

Harvard’s 11.38 goals per game average is good for 13th in the country.

Trying to stop them for Cornell will be some combination of freshman AJ Fiore and junior Mat Martinez, who have split time between the pipes this season. Both have done well, with the Big Red leading the Ancient Eight in save percentage. Martinez holds the third-highest individual save percentage in the conference at .667.

One thing Harvard will especially focus on is getting ahead early.

The Crimson have been outshot 30-21 in the first period of games this season and have fallen behind by large margins in their past three games.

The Crimson trailed 6-1 against Brown, 9-3 against Dartmouth, and 9-0 against Duke, only coming out victorious against the Big Green.

Getting off to a good start will be no easy task against Cornell, which has outscored opponents 25-15 in the first period this season.

“I think we need to come out with more confidence,” Smith said. “We’ve shown in the second half that we’ve done really well, so we’ve got to come out flying.”

Neither team hurts itself with penalties; Cornell and Harvard rank 1-2 respectively in the conference in fewest penalties committed.

But while the Big Red is first in the conference with a .762 penalty-killing percentage, Harvard ranks dead last in the Ivy in that category, with a .478 percentage.

For all its impressive statistics, Cornell has only defeated one ranked team—current No. 18 Yale—so far this year. The team is coming off a bad game of its own, a shocking 8-6 upset loss to Dartmouth. The Crimson is 1-3 against ranked opponents in 2010.

Last season, the two teams played an extremely close game in at Schoellkopf Field, with the Big Red coming away victorious, 13-12.

Despite holding a lead for 44 minutes and getting up by as many as four goals, Harvard was outscored 4-1 in the contest’s final 20 minutes.

Hurley had both the game-tying and go-ahead goals in that game, one that has stuck in the Crimson players’ minds for over a year.

“We definitely had a bad taste in our mouth when we left Cornell last year,” Cohen said. “I think we could’ve had them.”

And despite the challenge the Big Red pose, Harvard believes it will be able to get its retribution.

“I’d say we’ve put the Duke game out of our minds,” Cohen said. “We’ve tried to move on. We had a good week of practice, so we’re all very confident going into next week. We all understand its probably the biggest game of the season.”