‘Everything’s going in for the Crimson’: Men’s Lax Bulldozes Past Yale 14-11

The No. 13 Harvard men’s lacrosse team (5-1, 1-0 Ivy) had one imperative this week against Ancient Eight rival Yale (1-4, 0-1 Ivy): defend Jordan Field. And, that is exactly what the Crimson did, besting the Elis 14-11 and clinching its first win against the New Haven team since 2017.

From the first whistle the energy was different on Jordan. The game marked the 106th meeting between the two programs, and it was the first time under Head Coach Gerry Byrne’s tenure that his squad entered the matchup ranked higher than the the 2018 NCAA Champions and 2019 NCAA Runner Ups; the boys were gunning for a win.

“When you play games like this, it’s a cliche, but the rankings don’t matter,” Byrne said. “They’ve been playing this game since 1882.”

Breaking the mold of the slow start, Harvard’s freshman FOGO Jackson Henehan won the initial clamp on the faceoff — besting the Bulldogs’ senior FOGO Machado Rodriguez, who went about 61% last season — and the home team got the ball down to its offensive zone where it set up and got to work. The team’s first quarter was anything but cold. It was burning hot.

“We prepared really well this week,” Henehan said. “Our wings did great on ground balls and won their matchups, and I think that’s what got the ball in our offense’s stick more.”

The first of six-straight unanswered strikes came from senior attackman Sam King, who once again led his team to victory with five goals on the day. Coming into the game second in the country in shooting percentage, the offense made light work of what is always a physical, scrappy, and loud defense under Yale’s Head Coach Andy Shay. With the ball settled on attack, Harvard worked it around, letting the shot clock wind down as two premium takes sailed wide of the cage.

Finding himself at his familiar spot at X, King took it himself around the right side of the crease, getting a step as his defender got caught behind the net on the off-ball pick from junior middie Francisco Cortes, and sniping it past Hugh Conrad on an overhand jump shot that painted the top right corner. Pumping his fist at the bench, Harvard was riled up.

The next goal was the result of a heads-up CTO from senior defenseman Martin Nelson, who tipped Yale’s senior attackman Leo Johnson’s attempt to feed from the X. Winning the GB scrum — which it did all day, beating Yale on the 50-50s 39-to-27 — Harvard easily cleared it upfield, where junior attackman Teddy Malone found sophomore attackman Jack Speidell flying around the right side of the cage for a lefty fastbreak finish with time and space. The third strike was the result of a sloppy TO from Yale, as the Bulldogs’ defense sailed the ball high over the midline where it was scooped up by a Crimson SSDM and pushed across the 50. Gunning through the transition, Speidell found the one more for King, who got a step underneath his defender and buried it on the doorstep. The crowd went wild.

Goal four marked the second of the season for senior middie Joe Dowling, who put the moves on SSDM Johnny Keib, getting a step down the left alley and dribbling it past the goalmouth. Two would come off Malone’s cross to cap off the 6-0 stretch, again coming off a failed attacking opportunity for the Bulldogs. Malone stole King’s signature dodge, curling around the crease and using his defender and the cross-crease slide as a screen as he ripped it side-arm around the netminder. Three minutes later, Malone sniped an outside righty bullet past the Yale goalie, this time on a cross-fan pass from junior middie Logan Ip that perfectly dissected the Bulldog’s defense.

With the bench and the crowd riled up, it was time to play ball. Yale, playing with desperation, stymied the run with a man-up goal from Leo Johnson. About 40 seconds later, senior middie Chris Lyons would also find the back of the net. Lyons proved a challenge for the Crimson throughout the afternoon, finding time and space for four lethal outside shots. King capped off scoring for the first, finding glory on a feed from Malone as he curled around the left side of the cage for the decisive finish.

“We played our game,” King said. “We were very unselfish and we took chances when we needed to and finished it.”

The second quarter fell in favor of Yale, with the Bulldogs shaking off some of their nerves to claw their way back into contention. Junior John Aurandt IV — who has found his stride this season — started it off with a slippery backhanded shot as he curled around the left side of the crease, putting up another Sports Center Top-10 level finish. But Yale wasn’t ready to call it a day, answering with three-straight goals. In the first half, the defense sunk back off its matchups, which allowed the Elis offense to get its hands free for outside shots that narrowly snuck by freshman goalie Graham Stevens. Byrne must have emphasized the need to get out on the Bulldogs’ hands at the half, because the Crimson came out physical and hard in the third quarter.

The Harvard defense played as a unit, and it capitalized on its hard work. Making the stops, winning the 50-50 GBs in the scrum, and clearing it to the attack, Byrne couldn’t have asked for a better performance across the field. Nelson led the unit with three CTOs, junior SSDM Owen Guest posted five GBs and one CTO, junior defenseman Charlie Muller notched two CTOs and one GB, and senior defender Logan Darrin tallied two of each. Hustle plays from junior SSDM Finn Pokorny — who absolutely leveled Yale’s Brad Sharp in the second, kicking off the physical play from the normally less-aggressive squad — junior SSDM Finn Jensen, and sophomore LSM Wyatt Wiggins proved to be crucial momentum-builders.

“They gave me the looks I wanted,” Stevens said. “They took no inside shots and that was great for us. We just buttoned up.”

With the lead now shrunk to just three goals, Harvard found its answer following a hustle play from Speidell, who decked a Yale defenseman carrying the ball over the midline, sending it flying out of his cross and out of bounds. Erupting in cheers, the Crimson bench had even more to celebrate as senior middie Owen Gaffney made the most of the possession, taking it himself down the left alley for a side-arm snipe that made the twine sing.

“They’re a high energy, very confrontational team, and we matched that, and at times exceeded it,” Byrne said. “And that allowed us to not get pushed around, which I think has happened in the past.”

The next momentum shift would go for Yale, as a two-minute locked-in penalty against Darrin would give the Bulldogs a much-needed berth to find offensive motion. However, the Elis were only able to sail it past Stevens once on the elongated penalty, and following the first strike from Keib, momentum actually seemed to tilt toward Harvard as it killed the remaining minutes of the penalty.

On a filthy split dodge from the low right corner, King made light work of Yale’s senior defender Jack Stuzin — who was actually King’s highschool classmate — breaking his ankles as he changed up his pattern to shift underneath of the senior, getting the quick shot off before two helping slides were able to collapse. Johnson and Lyons kept the Elis on their backs as they shortened the Crimson’s lead to just two goals, 10-8, heading into the half.

Harvard has been a team of two halves so far, and as such Byrne needed to keep his guys riled up and hungry during the intermission. Taking the field, the squad had a determined look in its eye; it never let its foot off the gas, controlling the next 30 minutes of play.

Typically, Yale plays as a scrappy, mistake-free team, and so the 22 turnovers (14 of which were CTOs) and only 12-of-18 successful clears were a far departure from that typical error-free play. The Yale defense, which is known as a physical and aggressive unit, didn’t do much to stymie the Harvard offense, only notching three CTOs over 60 minutes. Harvard made light work of the 10-man ride —Yale was known for being one of the first D-1 programs to successfully integrate the Valkyrie-like attack into its repertoire — successfully completing every single one of its 24 clears except for one in the fourth.

Things just seemed to come together for Byrne and his team. Speidell drew first blood in the second half, getting rid of the ball in a hockey-like shot off the feed from behind from Malone who saw Speidell slip into space in front of the crease. Speidell has worked himself into a role previously occupied by standout attackman Hayden Cheek ’23, who was lauded for getting himself open in tight spots and facilitating off-ball.

Johnson would level back for Yale just two minutes later on the feed from Keib, but the Crimson quickly regained its footing. No goal songs would sing for almost eight minutes, but that didn’t matter as the next three fell in favor of the home team. With three minutes left on the game clock and just six seconds on the shot clock, Speidell found a waiting King in the middle of the arc on a last-ditch feed to get one more shot off before the possession expired. Junior middie Andrew Perry kept it rolling for Harvard, showing off with just 12 seconds left in the third on a step-down bullet from the top of the arc.

Three minutes into the fourth, Ip capped off the scoring for Harvard, extending its lead to five. Despite notching two more goals, the Elis were unable to regain enough footing to make it an even game. Playing keepaway for the last minute and a half, the win was secured as junior SSDM Owen Guest broke a Yale attackman’s ankles with eight seconds on the clock. For the first time since 2017, the Crimson proved victorious.

A sea of white rushed the field. Batting a thousand through the first week of Ivy League play, Harvard completed a perfect three-game homestand.

The challenge is still on for the Crimson, though. Just the beginning, Harvard will travel to play the Princeton Tigers this Saturday at 12 p.m.. Catch the action live in N.J., or stream it on ESPN+.

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