Sports

MEN’S LACROSSE ABOUT THE TEAM

2019-20 Overall Record 2-2 ______________________________________ Conference Record 0-0 ______________________________________ Goals Per Game 11.75 ______________________________________ Shots Per Game 33 ______________________________________ Shots on Goal % 35.6 ______________________________________

UPCOMING GAMES ______________________________________ Men’s Lacrosse vs Brown Saturday, 3 p.m.

Men’s Lacrosse vs Boston University Tuesday, 7 p.m.

Harvard Halts Losing Streak Friday, Then Loses to Yale WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

By A.J. DILTS CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Seeking to end the 2019-2020 season with a successful road trip this past weekend, Harvard halted its five-game losing streak with a 63-59 victory over Brown on Friday night. The Crimson looked to carry this momentum into its contest with archrival Yale on Saturday but came up short in a close 60- 58 Ivy League battle.

HARVARD 63, BROWN 59

Entering Friday night’s match up with Brown (8-18, 2-11 Ivy) was a Harvard squad (15-12, 6-8) hungry to move past its recent struggles and secure a win against the last-place conference foe. Freshman guard Lola Mullaney led the offensive effort with 17 points and 7 rebounds, and was joined in double figures by her sophomore backcourt partner Tess Sussman with a 13-point performance. Mullaney and Sussman combined for seven three-pointers, a clear indication that the shooting woes of previous weeks did not follow the Crimson to Providence.

After trading baskets with the Bears to start the first quarter, Harvard used an 11-1 run in the second to stretch its lead to a healthy 14 points. But just as the Crimson looked to grow this margin and carry a huge amount of confidence into halftime, a stretch of turnovers, foul trouble, and inefficient shooting sparked a 9-0 Brown run to cut the deficit to five.

“We played the first quarter the way we feel we should have played all year,” said coach Kathy Delaney-Smith. “We played about half the second quarter that way, and then hit the wall. We got away from some stuff that we had been doing very, very well.” Driving the first half lead was freshman guard Annie Stritzel, who tallied seven of her ten points in the second period. Stritzel’s solid play off the bench came on the heels of her career-high 18-point performance last weekend. As the season drew to a close and Delaney-Smith looked for consistent play from her reserves, the young and talented Stritzel was the one she turned to most.

“I think [Stritzel] has an incredible future, even though she’s a little nontraditional in how she plays,” said Delaney-Smith. “She has a tremendous heart, tremendous work ethic, and a great basketball IQ. [...] She became the sixth-player on the bench for us, and she does a great job of that.”

Harvard’s troubles late in the first half continued into the second, and, after being outscored 17-6 in the third quarter, the Crimson found itself trailing a Brown squad playing much better than the Bears’ record indicated. A three-point shot with seven minutes to play from junior forward Rachel Levy restored the Harvard lead, and her 17-rebound effort helped protect it until the final buzzer sounded, giving the Crimson the win it was desperate for.

MULLING THE DRIVE Lola Mullaney looks to drive in Harvard’s big win over Penn earlier this season. She closed the season strong, scoring 33 points in the Crimson’s final two games. TIMOTHY R. O’MEARA—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER

YALE 60, HARVARD 58

Having recorded a home victory over Yale (19-8, 9-5) on February 7th, Harvard was determined to complete the season sweep and end its 2019-2020 campaign with a signature win against its foremost rival. Senior forward Jeannie Boehm paced the Crimson with a huge 19-point, 15-rebound performance in her final game in a Harvard jersey. Mullaney brought her recent hot shooting into New Haven as well, finishing with 16 points on four-ofseven shooting from beyond the three-point line. Having recorded a home victory over Yale (19-8, 9-5) on February 7th, Harvard was determined to complete the season sweep and end its 2019- 2020 campaign with a signature win against its foremost rival. Senior forward Jeannie Boehm paced the Crimson with a huge 19-point, 15-rebound performance in her final game in a Harvard jersey. Mullaney brought her recent hot shooting into New Haven as well, finishing with 16 points on four-ofseven shooting from beyond the three-point line. The Crimson built its largest lead of the night in the first quarter, as three triples from Mullaney pushed Harvard to a 20-11 lead. But the dynamic play of Yale’s senior guard Roxy Barahman settled her team into the contest. The rivals exchanged buckets through the first half, making for a thrilling, hard-fought game that featured four ties and seven lead changes.

“Yale has all the pieces,” said Delaney-Smith. “They have a veteran team, they have a point guard [Barahman] that can score, they have an inside player that is very talented, they have a lights out shooter that we did a very good job on. They have a bunch of kids that are blue collar workers.”

After trailing by six points at halftime, a balanced scoring attack from all five starters produced a competitive third quarter in which each team scored 15 points. Rachel Levy continued her solid play from Friday, and her seven fourth quarter points led the Crimson as it erased the Yale lead down the stretch. Levy’s two free throws with 35 seconds remaining gave Harvard a 58-57 advantage, but a massive three-point shot from Yale put the Bulldogs on top 60- 58 at the 30 second mark.

With one final possession left to determine the outcome of the game, a missed three pointer from Levy and a missed jump shot from Mullaney as time expired yielded raucous celebrations from the Yale bench.

“We got the shots we wanted to win the game,” said Delaney-Smith after the final game of the season. “But again, its young kids taking the shot, rather than veterans taking the shot. [...] We need to get consistency. I thought everybody worked really, really hard, and we weren’t mistake free but we’re too young to be mistake free. [...] They’re great players, but we’ve struggled with consistency.”

Harvard Bounces Back With Strong Win Against Fairfield MEN’S LACROSSE

By BEN MORRIS CRIMSON STAFF WRITER

After a three-game stretch to start the year that took Harvard all across the region, the Crimson finally returned — not only to its home at Jordan Field, but also to its winning ways, as it edged past Fairfield 15-12 in a back-and-forth game.

The week-long wait to take the field after a crushing, 15-14 loss at Albany (2-3) came to an end with the arrival of Fairfield (4-2), Harvard’s final non-conference opponent before the Crimson begins Ivy League play.

It was clear that the team members were raring to get back on the field and prove themselves, as less than two minutes into the game, sophomore midfielder Nick Loring raced down the left end of the field, and, with a defender at his back, ripped a shot past Fairfield’s goalkeeper to give Harvard (2-2) the early lead.

“Our coaches instill a lot of confidence in us to make decisions within the flow of the game,” said Loring. “As an offensive unit, we’ve learned to trust each other’s judgment in terms of capitalizing on opportunities early in possessions. Our defense had done a great job preparing us all week for what Fairfield was going to show us, so, fortunately, I was able to have a general idea of what to expect coming out of that first dodge.”

The Crimson kept up the early pressure, with senior attacker Ryan Graff and first-year midfielder Mark Stephens each adding goals before five minutes had elapsed off of the clock. Not long after, senior attacker Jeremy Magno scored off of an assist from captain and senior attacker, Kyle Anderson, who, not four minutes later, netted a goal of his own.

The early abundance of goals, coupled with solid play on both ends of the field, allowed

Harvard to carry a 5-2 lead, as well as a great deal of momentum, with it into the second quarter.

However, it would take more than a hot start to win this game. As Anderson noted after the Albany game, it takes four complete and competitive quarters to secure wins. Despite the early lead, a Fairfield goal less than a minute into the second quarter — which brought the Stags within two goals — may have allowed this thought to re-enter into the mind of the Crimson. But Harvard quickly responded to thwart any possibility of a comeback. Following Fairfield’s goal, the Crimson rattled off four straight goals from four different players (nine different players scored on the day), resulting in a 9-4 halftime lead.

“We felt as though we had yet to play our first complete game, as we had one to two-quarter long lulls in both the Albany and Holy Cross games,” Loring said. “We definitely put an emphasis on closing out possessions and quarters strongly all week, and I think the biggest in-game difference that kept our pace of play high was both our ability to gain extra possessions through ground balls and riding, and also the energy that our bench brought throughout the game.” Harvard was certainly tested again in the third quarter, as Fairfield netted four goals, including three straight to start the quarter. But the team remained true to its objective and responded with four goals of its own, two of which came from Loring, who netted a hat trick on the day.

In the fourth quarter, the Stags made their final comeback push, but strong defense, along with goals from junior midfielder Kyle Salvatore and sophomore attacker Austin Madronic (which earned him a hat trick of his own) helped keep Fairfield’s efforts at bay. By the time the contest came to a close, the Crimson had secured a hard-fought victory.

“We’ve struggled a lot with clearing the ball against the tenman ride,” said junior goalkeeper Kyle Mullin, who recorded 14 saves in the win. “This week in practice, we spent a ton of time preparing for Fairfield’s ten-man, and we did a good job against it on game day.”

Statistically, the game was fairly even across the board. Harvard finished with 43 shots (including 31 on target) to Fairfield’s 39 (and 26 on frame), while the teams were almost even in the turnover and faceoff deparments. Both teams were effective in man-up situations, as the Crimson converted one of its two opportunities while Fairfield made good on two of three special teams chances.

Harvard struggled a little bit against senior attacker Dylan Beckwith and junior midfielder Taylor Strough. The two Fairfield stars, who have combined for 49 goals this season, netted five total goals and two helpers. Strough in particular peppered the Crimson net with shots, taking 11 total, including seven on target, as he notched a hattrick in the loss.

Harvard will have to improve its defense quickly, as the Crimson is quickly approaching an Ivy League schedule that seems likely to be extraordinarily difficult this season, with the Ancient Eight seemingly boasting some of the best teams it has seen in a long time.

After going 2-2 to start the year, Harvard will now move into Ivy League play, beginning with Brown (3-2) next Saturday. Although Brown may not be one of the top teams that immediately comes to mind in the Ivy League, the Bears are certainly still a foe to be reckoned with, as the team is coming off of a 14- 13 win against the defending NCAA Champion No. 8 Virginia Cavaliers (4-1).

“The most important game of our season is always the next game,” said Mullin. “We are happy about our win yesterday, but by no means satisfied with how we played. We will continue to develop in practice and prepare for a big one this weekend. Brown is a tough opponent and we are excited for the opportunity.”

However, competition for the Crimson will only continue to get tougher after that. This year, over half of the Ivy League itself is currently ranked top-10 nationally: No. 5 Yale (2-1), No. 6 Princeton (4-0), No. 7 Cornell (4-0), and No. 9 Penn (1-2).

“The Ivy League is obviously incredibly strong this year, which is really exciting,” said Loring. “There are no weaklinks in the league this year, so we have to take each week as it’s own individual season. Our team is far from a finished product, so I think our biggest keys going into Ivy play are to continue to improve and to just stay focused on our next opponent.” The message of staying focused on one game at a time has been reiterated by several team members and will be crucial for taking on the slate of top-rated foes still on tap.

Yet the Crimson has already been battle-tested this season, and, if the team can continue to play together, from start-to-finish, as it did against Fairfield, Harvard will be a force to be reckoned with in the Ivy League this season, starting next Saturday against the Bears.