Men's Lacrosse Earns Postseason Honors

The Harvard men’s lacrosse team’s season didn’t end the way the Crimson would have liked, but three of the squad’s standouts nonetheless earned accolades for their individual performances this year.

Seniors Jeff Cohen and Kevin Vaughan were unanimously named to the All-Ivy League first team this week, while sophomore Daniel Eipp was tabbed for the second team.

2012 marked the second straight season in which the Crimson was represented by two players on the conference first team—the first time since 1979-80 it achieved that feat in back-to-back years.

Vaughan, a midfielder, is making his second consecutive appearance on that squad after being joined by Dean Gibbons ’11 last season. The tri-captain, a preseason All-Ivy first team selection, lived up to those high expectations by leading the Crimson with 19 assists. The senior also ranked third on the team with 17 goals and 36 points. Vaughan now moves on to a professional career with the Denver Outlaws, who selected him with the 14th overall pick in January’s Major League Lacrosse draft.

Cohen, an attackman, had one of the Crimson’s best individual seasons ever in 2012. The senior ranked second in the country with 3.43 goals per game and 48 scores overall, a total that included 10 hat tricks and marked the seventh-highest single-season output in Harvard history. He scored at least three goals in six straight games from Feb. 28 to March 24, recorded a season-high seven tallies in the Crimson’s March 31 win over Michigan, and registered five tallies against Holy Cross, Duke, Brown, and Dartmouth. Cohen—who finished his career as Harvard’s all-time leading scorer with 142 career goals—also paced the Ancient Eight with 56 points, while his 4.0 points per game average was good for 12th best in the nation.

Eipp’s 24 goals, 18 assists, and 42 points all ranked second on the squad. The sophomore, who was an All-Ivy honorable mention last year, finished fourth in the Ancient Eight with a 3.0 points per game average.

But despite that trio of standouts, Harvard lost its final four Ivy League contests and finished the year 6-8 overall, missing out on the conference tournament and with it the chance to play in the postseason.

Three of those late-season losses came at the hands of Princeton, Cornell, and Yale, whose players dominated the first team along with Harvard’s. Tigers goalie Tyler Fiorito won Ancient Eight Player of the Year, while Big Red attackman Matt Donovan won the league’s Rookie of the Year award. Princeton—the regular season Ivy champion—led the conference with four first team selections, while the Bulldogs had three and Cornell had two.