...While Laxmen Have Rough Ivy Start

The Harvard men's lacrosse team didn't exactly hit the ground running as it plunged into its Ivy season over spring break.

With a loss to the nation's top-ranked team, Johns Hopkins, as their only game preparation, the laxmen took their annual run at the nine-time defending Ivy champion, Cornell. The Big Red dumped the Crimson in Ithaca, 14-9. Harvard barely beat a weaker Boston College Squad, 9-8 in overtime, Tuesday, then self-destructed Saturday against Penn in a 12-7 loss, probably dooming its title hopes.

With its season almost a third over already. Harvard's record stands at 1-3 (0-2 in the Ivies)

The Crimson had a little to cheer about the first Saturday of vacation at Cornell--but only for about 17 seconds, which was how long it took for freshman Chris Pujols to score the first goal. After that the hosts tallied six straight on the way to an 8-4 halftime lead.

Attackman Kevin Cook led the Big Red offense with five goals as the much faster Cornell squad never led by less than three after the first quarter.

In its home debut last Tuesday, Harvard blew an early 3-0 lead against B.C. The lax men may have been a little too anxious to rout the Eagles, angered after B.C. showed up an hour late and not yet in uniform.

"We were pretty lucky to win against B.C.," admitted Co-Captain Brendan Meagher. "We had a lot of turnovers."

The senior midfielder decided the issue himself, scoring in the extra session to seal the win.

But Saturday's match versus Penn proved the most disturbing so far for the Crimson. Before that, it had lost to higher-ranked teams twice and then beaten, albeit with difficulty, a weaker team. But against the Quakers, Harvard gave away a win it should have had.

Not that Penn looked to be a pushover--it was ranked ninth in the country last week, with some wins over tough non-Ivy competition. But the Crimson found itself capable of handling the visiting Quakers well enough, building a 5-1 lead by the early moments of the second quarter.

With midfielders Glenn Ritchie and Leo Paytas leading the onslaught, Penn tied it at five in the final minute of the first half.

The Quakers started beating the Crimson to ground balls, and Harvard couldn't protect the ball when it had it. The result was that the Crimson didn't score again until nearly half-way through the fourth quarter: by then, Penn had reeled off nine straight tallies.

Harvard gets a chance to rebound when it hosts Brown Wednesday at 3 p.m.