Fourth Quarter Run Pushes Men's Lax Past Quinnipiac

The score was tied at 9-9 when the Harvard men’s lacrosse team entered the fourth quarter in a game against Quinnipiac Tuesday evening.

However, the Crimson (2-1) ran away at the end by scoring five consecutive goals within three minutes, beating the Bobcats by a five-goal margin, 17-12.

Harvard emerged in the fourth quarter with new energy and aggression, as sophomore Austin Williams scored the second goal of the quarter directly from the face-off, notching his first goal of the season.

This drive was matched by his fellow teammates who ended any hope of a Quinnipiac comeback by scoring three more goals to finish the game with a tally of eight goals in the final quarter.

“We realized we had to work for it,” junior midfielder and co-captain Sean Mahon said. “We had to lock it down and put the full effort in, and played a lot better.”

The Crimson, ranked No. 13/16 nationally, entered the game owning a 6-0 record historically against the Bobcats and was 3-0 on its home turf in Cambridge.

It seemed like history would repeat itself easily when junior midfielder Ian Ardrey scored two goals early, assisted by junior attackman Devin Dwyer. This prompted a succession of two more from the junior attackman Will Walker and junior midfielder Sean McDonagh, leaving Harvard up, 4-1, after 10 minutes.

But the Crimson would not be able to pull away. Despite Harvard’s taking almost twice as many shots at goal and winning more groundballs than the Bobcats in both the first and second quarter, it wasn’t enough to finish off the Bobcats.

Quinnipiac responded by locking in two more goals in the first quarter and outscoring the Crimson 3-1 in the second, leaving Harvard trailing, 6-5, at halftime. The sudden resurgence by Quinnipiac served as a wake up call for the Crimson.

“We came out really hot, and I think we just felt that it was going to keep happening,” Harvard coach Chris Wojcik ’96 said. “It’s a good lesson that you have to earn everything and go out and take it. It’s not going to be a 4-1 run each time.”

The Crimson returned from halftime a completely different team, first catching up to the Bobcats by outscoring them 4-3 in the third quarter and then leaving Quinnipiac far behind with its performance in the fourth.

The fourth quarter streak was highlighted by goals from Walker, junior attackman Deke Burns, freshman midfielder Joe Lang, McDonagh, and Dwyer. Dwyer would finish the game with one goal, five assists and the highest point total for Harvard. The sophomore led the squad with 47 points last season, and has already racked up 14 in the Crimson’s first three contests of the year.

“We were moving the ball, spinning the ball, and not taking the first shot because we...were expecting [the shot to be] covered,” Mahon said.  “But once we started taking…the first [shot] right away, we started scoring a lot more.”

Guided by its newfound aggressiveness on offense, the Crimson proceeded to see many more of its shots at goal find the back of the net. Harvard scored on eight-of-12 shots made on goal in the fourth quarter compared to only one-of-10 in the second.

“At halftime, we made a couple of adjustments and the guys really adjusted,’” Wojcik said. “I really felt like ‘enough’s enough here.’ I said that it was crunch time and we really needed to start playing our brand of lacrosse. It wasn’t a schematic change, it was simply a maturation of the team. It was important for us to play well in that fourth quarter as this past Saturday we got outplayed by Duke in that fourth quarter,”

This change was embodied by the performance of Lang, who scored three times and made two assists in the second half.

“He was a real kind of burst of energy,” Wojcik said. “He made some key plays.”

Despite having a shaky start, Harvard gained both a win and a lesson that it will take with it for the rest of the season.

“We learned a lot from it,” said Dwyer. “At any other game we play this year, we’re definitely not going to take any team for granted.”