Down Goes Brown

Playing in its first Ivy League matchup of the season, the Crimson men’s lacrosse team (5-1, 1-0 Ivy) outlasted Brown (2-3, 0-1) on the road in Providence, R.I., on Saturday afternoon, 11-7.

Harvard’s current record marks the team’s best start to the season since the 2000 campaign, when it began the year 5-0 but lost six of its final eight.

“We’re excited about the start [to the season],” Crimson coach Chris Wojcik ’96 said. “But we still have our best lacrosse to come...we’re certainly happy with how we started, but we as a team are not about how we start, but how we finish.”

Coming off three straight wins beginning with a victory over the 20th-ranked Georgetown Hoyas, Harvard again kept things tight in the first three periods but used a strong fourth period—in which the Crimson out-scored the Bears, 3-0—to pull away.

Led by hat tricks from co-captain attack Dean Gibbons and sophomore midfielder Ryan Stevens, Harvard notched its first win over Brown since 2007.

“It’s our first time beating Brown in three years, losing in close games each time,” junior attack Jeff Cohen said. “So it’s important to start the Ivy League season off with a win.”

The Crimson came out of the gate shooting, accounting for the first six attempts of the game.

The attack was capped with a goal by Gibbons to give Harvard an early lead with 12:11 remaining in the first period.

The Bears won the ensuing faceoff and traded possessions with the Crimson until finally putting it away on a goal by Brown sophomore midfielder Johnny DePeters with 7:30 on the clock.

Within two minutes, Gibbons added his second tally of the game to give Harvard a 2-1 lead going into the second period.

“I was really impressed with how we played today,” sophomore goalie Harry Krieger said. “Both our offense and our defense seemed to really be clicking.”

In the opening four minutes of the second period, the Crimson extended its lead on goals from Cohen and junior midfielder Terry White to open up a three-goal advantage.

But the Bears were not quite ready to roll over.

Brown responded with four goals of its own, including two from senior Andrew Feinberg, to take the lead with 2:14 to play in the period.

For Harvard, which had to come back from an early deficit against Holy Cross earlier in the week, it seemed it would take another similar effort to come out with the win on its rival’s field.

The comeback began with a Crimson goal just 40 seconds later by junior co-captain Kevin Vaughan on a second-chance opportunity after a missed shot by White.

Although the game went into the locker room tied, 5-5, Harvard would never be down again.

“Keep doing what were doing,” said Wojcik of what he told his team at halftime. “We have confidence in our strategy and our players, and we knew our shots would start to go in.”

The second half began with two straight goals by Stevens—both second-chance tries coming off his own misses. The goals helped the Crimson regain control and open up a two-score lead.

With 6:32 to play, sophomore Peter Schwartz committed a penalty, creating an extra-man opportunity for the Bears, which responded within 10 seconds to cut the Harvard lead to 7-6.

Both teams exchanged goals to end the third period, 8-7, with Stevens picking up his third score of the game.

The final period proved to be the end of the road for Brown, which could not match up with the swift attack of the Crimson offense and the strong defense of Krieger.

The sophomore added five saves in the final period, giving him a season-high 13 total saves on the day.

“I think the main reason for my performance was how well our defense played,” Krieger said. “That number also reflects how well the entire defensive front played all game.”

Within 40 seconds of the whistle starting the fourth period, White added his second goal of the game, followed by another Harvard goal just two minutes later by freshman midfielder Daniel Eipp.

The next 12 minutes featured a total of 12 shots, six by each team. The final Crimson shot was the one that found the net, completing the hat trick for Gibbons.

Harvard out-shot the Bears by a margin of 52-33.