Junot Finds Positives in Winless Streak

In a conversation with Harvard men’s soccer coach Carl Junot after the Crimson’s match against the New Mexico Lobos, the first-year head coach commented on the team’s overall progress and the necessity for the front line to put away any chance it gets. In addition, he highlighted the high caliber of teams that Harvard has faced thus far.

“In my opinion, after facing UConn and New Mexico, we have encountered two of the top teams in the country, and we’ve proven to ourselves that we are capable of competing with those guys,” Junot remarked.

He kept stressing the fact that even though the past couple of games haven’t been high-scoring matches, just as the Crimson has done its part on the defensive side, other teams have played well enough to shut down the Harvard offense.

“We are just playing against fantastic teams,” Junot explained. “There’s been two games we’ve been shut out and they were both here in New Mexico. Every other game we’ve played in we scored. I felt [against the Lobos] we created sufficient opportunities to score goals.”

Unfortunately, the Crimson strikers haven’t been able to come up with a winning goal for the past three games, and Junot understands that the hardest part of soccer is to find the back of the net. He has high expectations for his team, however, and was pleased with the recent performances of a few of his players.

“Scottie Prozeller, Baba Omosegbon, and Brian Rogers all had outstanding performances and showed leadership and true ability to be special players,” he said.

As the season continues and enters the middle section of the schedule, Junot knows what the team needs to work on if it is going to win games.

“We have to continue to learn to organize ourselves and defend well and the next step is to become a goal-scoring team,” Junot observed. “We’re getting there. We have good players who can attack.”

Harvard will meet Stony Brook tonight and Boston University on Sunday as it continues to prepare for Ivy League play.