Home Opener Heartbreak: Men’s Lacrosse Falls to Colgate 19-15

Heartbreak plagued the No. 15 Harvard men’s lacrosse team (1-1, 0-0 Ivy) yesterday as it failed to defend Jordan Field against the visiting Colgate Raiders, falling to the Upstate New York team 19-15. Following a close game against the Providence Friars last weekend, the Cambridge program was unable to pull together another second-half performance to secure a win in its 2025 home opener.

The Crimson looked poised through the first quarter, shutting down Colgate’s initial offensive possession with tight man defense that forced the Colgate attack to attempt a risky feed into the middle of the arc. The play resulted from senior SSDM Ray Dearth’s one-on-one coverage that pushed his initial matchup – the Raiders’ middie Hunter Drouin – to sling it into space. Drouin would prove lethal to the Crimson defense later in the game, however, notching seven points and two ground balls, and subsequently drawing pole coverage.

While statistics are still inflated given the differing number of games that result from unique regulations imposed by certain conferences, following its win at Providence, the Harvard defense was ranked as the third-most-lethal in Division I. Hoping to avoid a repeat of Providence’s quick race to a two-goal-lead, the Harvard defense did a nice job settling in, and was able to win the ground ball after a heads-up play from junior SSDM Owen Guest knocked it into space and saw him barrel into his offensive end.

A hallmark of Harvard Head Coach Gerry Byrne’s recruiting, the starting midfield line of juniors Francisco Cortes, Andrew Perry — who red-shirted last season to preserve his eligibility following injury — and co-captain Logan Ip was a change up from the usual faces of seniors Owen Gaffney and Miles Botkiss — who scored the first two goals for Harvard against Providence. The depth of the midfield lines was in full force yesterday as eight different players found the back of the net.

Settled six-on-six offense is something that the Crimson struggled with in both of its opening contests, and a missed pass from Ip to co-captain Sam King, who found himself free as he curled around the left side of the cage with 30 seconds on the shot clock, turned possession back over to the Raiders. Colgate’s goalie wasted no time making a break-away pass to one of his defensemen who raced the ball over the midline where he found a waiting attackman who sent the ball flying past freshman goalie Graham Stevens.

“It was a tough game defensively,” Byrne said. “They’re a team that aggressively clears the ball – the first three people that are up the field get to go. That could be multiple poles, it could be an LSM, and with the short turnaround we weren’t prepared to play at that pace either intellectually or physically.”

“They scored some goals in transition which are huge energy plays for them,” Byrne furthered. “Syracuse is even better than Colgate at that, and fortunately we have a couple more days to prepare than we did for Colgate.”

Byrne continued to rotate between his FOGOs, but freshman Jackson Henehan proved vital in securing possession for the Crimson. Winning the clamp, Henehan was able to get the ball down to his offense, where a goal off the feed from King to Gaffney on a low-to-low snipe would send the Harvard bench erupting in cheers. King has found himself filling a very different role this season from last, situating himself more as a facilitator than a finisher. Colgate’s decision to not cover King behind the cage seemed to stem from his six assist performance last weekend. While cutting down his ability to feed initially, the choice forced the Raiders to send the quick double team, which allowed King in this instance to hit Gaffney. Gaffney’s lacrosse IQ showed as he slipped into space, backdooring his defender who got caught rolling off the initial double.

The squad will look to tighten up its play as it heads into a tough battle against Syracuse this weekend. By Dylan J. Goodman

The next three would fall in favor of the Crimson, with sophomore attackman Jack Speidell — who tallied four goals against Providence and five against Colgate — junior attackman Teddy Malone, and Ip getting on the board. There would be five more face offs in the first 15 minutes, with King, junior middie John Aurandt IV, and Ip all showing off their shooting prowess. Breaking after the clock ran out, Harvard seemed confident and ready to protect and extend its 7-3 lead.

“Offensively we played together and shared the ball,” Botkiss said. “Guys got to dangerous spots on the field and we were able to find them for assisted goals.”

Perhaps it was the tundra-like conditions, which caused the game’s start time to move up from 6:30 p.m. to 2 p.m., that slowed Colgate’s initial go, but from the first whistle of the second, it was clear that a fire had been lit on the Raiders’ bench. A whopping seven of the nine goals in the second quarter would find their way past Stevens, and after just six minutes of play, Harvard found its lead scratched as Colgate leveled the game at seven-all.

“They started winning some face offs,” said Byrne about what changed between the two quarters. “They started dodging a little bit more physically and they started throwing the ball to the inside.”

Just six seconds after the New York team’s fourth unanswered goal, a crucial face off win by Henehan was just what the Crimson needed to stall the quickly-swinging momentum. On a textbook fast break, Henehan dished the ball to King, who sent the extra pass down low to Speidell who was holding his space on the doorstep in order to capitalize on his defender’s upfield slide to cover King.

While these moments of greatness kept the Crimson in contention until about the last five minutes of play, the squad was unable to string together another cohesive run that would send it ahead and build a buffer. What inevitably turned the tide of this contest in favor of the Raiders was Colgate’s determination to make the Crimson pay for its careless errors. Where the Friars neutralized the potential advantage gained from failed Crimson offensive possessions and missed ground balls in the scrum with their own missteps, the Raiders capitalized on Harvard’s weaknesses.

Winning the next face off, the Raiders would find themselves with a one-minute man-up advantage on a tripping penalty called against sophomore defender Joost de Koning. And, unlike the Friars who went 1-7 against the Crimson’s man-down unit, Colgate would utilize this opportunity to take control of the game. Two more goals would follow for the Raiders, and while the last strike went in favor of Harvard on a goal from Gaffney, it was evident as the two squads left the turf for a 20-minute half-time that Colgate was determined to make the long drive back to Hamilton, N.Y. a celebration.

The second half swung in favor of Colgate from the get go, and it seemed that Harvard was playing a reactionary game rather than driving the pace as it had in the first. The Raiders’ offense was mainly quarterbacked by Drouin, Ryan Favaro — who notched four goals and an assist — and Liam Connor — who found the back of the net twice and facilitated five of his teammates' goals.

On an extended Colgate possession with just under 10 minutes to play in the third, Drouin snuck one past he Stevens. Smartly cutting through the middle, Drouin recognized that his matchup, de Koning, preemptively jumped the double, leaving him alone in space. The middie didn’t stand still, following the lane downhill so that his teammate Connor Roy could make the heads up feed to him on the goalmouth. The Crimson’s team defense is usually a highlight as the squad rarely over-reacts on the quick double, instead allowing for sometimes-too-long one-on-one drives. In this instance, though, the miscommunication that left Drouin unguarded was a result of the defense getting caught ball-watching in the fan, and the mistake ultimately allowed Colgate to flash into open space.

Volume of possession time is something the Crimson needs to work through. Not to sound trite, but you can’t score without the ball. Colgate out-shot Harvard 49 to 42, and put five more of its takes on cage than the home team. In both of its last two games, Harvard’s opponents out-worked it on the GB battle, with the Raiders scooping up eight more than the Crimson yesterday. In terms of face offs — which has been a shaky factor for the last three Harvard teams — play was much more level for the Crimson yesterday, with the duo of Henehan and sophomore FOGO Owen Umansky combining for just under 50%.

Winning the 50-50 scrums off the face off and in the middle of the field is something that the Crimson will need to work on as it heads into an incredibly tough matchup against No. 6 Syracuse. If the squad has a hope of leaving the Carrier Dome victorious, it must find a way to get the ball down to its attacking end, which will not prove easy against Syracuse’s starting FOGO who is good for 60% through the team’s first four games.

“The loose ball game is critical,” said Byrne on what the team is looking to improve on heading into the weekend. “If you pull out the face off part of the game, we got killed on loose balls by Colgate. They just played with more energy and compete level, and as a result they ended our possessions in the second, third, and fourth quarter by getting the ball first and escaping.”

The Orange dropped from the No. 2 spot on Inside Lacrosse’s rankings last weekend after falling to then-No. 6 Maryland. Despite the loss, Syracuse’s attackman Joey Spallina leads the entire Division I field in total points with 25, the team’s starting goalie Jimmy McCool lands in the eighth spot for goals saved with 41, and the team ranks as the third-most-productive offense with a 15.5 goals-per-game average.

Syracuse Head Coach Gary Gait’s team will be a tough test for the Harvard men, but the squad certainly rises to a challenge. The team will need to rely on its collective lacrosse-IQ as the highest team GPA in all of Division I if it wants to pick apart the perennial powerhouse.

“We’re looking to improve in every phase of the game. We want to continue being an all around team, and this week of practice will help us get closer to that,” Gaffney said. “There were a lot of lessons to learn from the game yesterday and we hope to use those lessons to continue to build going into Saturday.”

In a welcome change from yesterday’s brutal conditions, the team will travel to Syracuse for a 1 p.m. battle indoors at the Carrier Dome. If you can’t make the drive Upstate, the game will also be streamed live on ACCNX.

—Staff writer Katharine A. Forst can be reached at katharine.forst@thecrimson.com