No. 13 M. Lax Falls to No. 9 Cornell

The erstwhile No. 13 Harvard men's lacrosse team (5-2, 1-1 Ivy) lost 12-7 to No. 9 Cornell (6-1, 2-0 Ivy) on Saturday in what was by far its worst outing of the season. The Crimson didn't give itself a chance to win against the Big Red.

"We weren't poised today," Coach Scott Anderson said. "We just didn't get a good effort."

Although hustle isn't a statistic in the books, there are some numbers that show how Cornell outhustled Harvard on Saturday.

The most telling stat in this game is the amount of shots taken by each team. The Big Red outshot the Crimson 50 to 26.

This disparity also reflects the time-of-possession difference in the game. Cornell was able to hold the ball in its offensive zone for long periods of time.

Although the Crimson defense was unable to generate enough takeaways against the Cornell offense, it was ground balls, face-offs, transition defense and Harvard's offense that allowed Cornell to dictate the pace of the game.

On ground balls, the Big Red got 42 and the Crimson only 25. Cornell won 13 face-offs and Harvard just eight.

In transition, the Big Red was able to convert 24-of-28 clearing attempts.

"We just didn't get back on transition defense," Anderson said. "Our ride was ineffective."

When the Crimson was on offense, Cornell packed its defenders into the middle of the field. With the driving lanes denied to Harvard players, they were forced to rely on their outside shots.

As the Crimson shot from outside, the rebounds off of the shots all went to Cornell because there was no one inside to contest them.

As a result, Cornell was able to hold the ball in its offensive zone for very long periods of time.

"We just got very tired on defense," Anderson said. "We don't have a lot of depth there, and they just wore us down."

The Big Red put the game away in the third quarter. After going into halftime tied 5-5, Cornell scored four goals early in the third in just over three minutes.

With senior goalkeeper Keith Cynar in the penalty box for the opening minute of the third quarter, Cornell took advantage of inexperienced junior goalkeeper Ely Kahn.

Cornell junior midfielder David Key beat his man one-on-one outside and no one slid to cover him as he drove to the net--this while the Big Red was a man down. Key converted an easy score from point-blank range with 13:24 to go in the quarter.

After the Big Red won the face-off, sophomore midfielder Galen Beers got a step on his defender and beat Cynar with a bounce shot from the wing from about 10 yards out with 12:41 to go in the quarter.

Again Cornell won the face-off, and this time junior attackman Andrew Schardt went inside on his man one-on-one and scored on an open shot from about five yards with 11:30 to go in the third. Again, no Crimson defender slid over to help out against Schardt's penetration.

Finally, senior attackman Sean Steinwald scored inside with 10:07 left in the third on an extra-man situation set up when captain Jeff Psaki was called for a holding penalty.

To go along with this glut of offense, the Big Red shut down the Crimson offense entirely in the third quarter. Harvard could manage only three shots in the third, which jarred with Cornell's 13 shots in the period.

The Big Red defense was dominant all game. Apart from holding the Crimson to mostly outside shots--the only inside shots Harvard attempted consistently were one-timers--Cornell completely shut down the Crimson's man-up unit. Harvard was unable to convert on any of its six extra-man opportunities.

Cynar played quite well despite giving up 12 goals if one considers the type of shots he had to defend.

Most of the Cornell goals came from point-blank range and despite the barrage of close shots that the tired Harvard defenders allowed, Cynar was able to save quite a few of them, tallying a total of 25 saves on the day.

In the fourth, although Harvard managed to score two goals, they were both quick scores. One-timers by junior midfielder Roger Buttles and junior attackman Dana Sprong may have hurt the Crimson as much as they helped.

The quick scores didn't allow the defense to rest and it gave up three more goals to the Big Red all scored from within 10 yards.

The Crimson has its next game at Brown (4-4, 1-1 Ivy) on Wednesday. Harvard will have to put out a better effort against a Bears team that lost a close one to No. 4 Princeton, 10-7.

Because Saturday's game was not representative of the Crimson's efforts as a whole this season, the team has reason to hope for a better performance on Wednesday.