Overtime Pays Off Again for M. Lax

Deja vu all over again? The Harvard men’s lacrosse team has indeed found an anecdote for its seven-game losing streak—overtime.

The Crimson (7-7) earned a 7-6 double-overtime win over Colgate (7-7) in last night’s chilly affair on Jordan Field.

Notre Dame also fell to Harvard 7-6 in overtime on Saturday.

Harvard fought back from a 5-1 deficit to knot the game at six with 2:20 remaining in regulation.

After fending off the Raiders in the first overtime, the Crimson triumphed when junior midfielder Doug Logigian nailed a shot to the left corner with just 1:03 left.

Harvard started the game on a good note before Colgate went on a five-goal run. Junior attacker Matt Primm scored the Crimson’s first goal at 5:47 in the first quarter. Primm rolled the crease, recovered from a defender’s check and sent a shot past Raider goalkeeper Chris Hettler.

However, the rest of the half was all Colgate, as the Raiders evened the score at 3:56 in the first when Scott Herbst sent a pass from behind goal to sophomore Chris Michaels, who fired quick shot into the left side of the goal.

Colgate took a 2-1 lead with nine seconds remaining in the quarter, using a stack play in which Herbst received a pass from behind goal and passed the ball off, only to receive it again and score.

Herbst tallied another assist on the Raiders’ third goal, at 10:26 of the second period, on a shot from Jeff Vander Meulen.

“The thing that just wasn’t falling for us was our shooting,” freshman attacker Mike McBride said. “We got our shots—we just didn’t hit them. This is something we’ve been emphasizing all week—shooting the right spots—and we just didn’t do that out here today and it almost cost us big.”

In addition to converting only one of 19 shots in the first half, Harvard also had difficulty overcoming Colgate’s pressure on the Crimson’s attempts to clear the ball from its zone. The Raiders capitalized on several hitches in Harvard’s defensive transitions.

“I think we just weren’t getting open enough on the outlets,” sophomore goaltender Jake McKenna said. “I wasn’t making good passes and everybody just needed to spread out and start to widen the field out a little bit.”

The second half opened with more of the same—Raiders offense. Joe Parker and Matt Saxon added goals to bring Colgate’s advantage to a seemingly insurmountable score of 5-1 with only 9:22 left in the third quarter.

But a goal from McBride, assisted by Primm, at 4:41 in the third incited the Harvard rally.

“We started taking smarter shots and shooting a little bit harder—not trying to shoot for location so much—and they started to fall,” Logigian said.

Co-captain Michael Baly continued the comeback, recovering the ball after a shot by sophomore midfielder Jeff Gottschall and scoring at 2:42 to cut the Raider’s lead to two.

While the Crimson rattled off 15 shots in the third, Harvard’s defense—behind the strong effort of senior Mike Packard— held Colgate to only three.

“Mike Packard really stepped it up and started leading us on the defense and getting us to be where we need to be,” McKenna said.

The final period of regulation opened with a Raider possession, but the Crimson recaptured the ball and scored again when Primm sent a pass from behind goal to McBride, who quick-sticked the ball past Hettler, bringing the score to 5-4.

Colgate’s answer to Harvard’s rally came with 6:58 left, when Parker sent a shot into the bottom right corner, giving the Raiders a two-goal cushion.

“Once we were down two, it was a little rough,” Logigian said. “But we got that fifth goal and I had a pretty good feeling that we would be all right then.”

Harvard again closed to within one with 2:30 remaining in regulation, as Baly received the ball from McBride on the right side of the box and launched a shot into left of the goal.

Sophomore Alex Vap won the ensuing face-off—one of his 11 wins of the night—and passed to Primm, who found McBride alone on the left of the goal. McBride scored, knotting the game at six, just 10 seconds after Harvard’s last goal.

“We had two and a half minutes left and we’d be running the face-off,” Logigian said. “Once we tied it up, we knew we were there three days ago and we knew that we were in good shape and it was just a matter of finding the right match-up.”

Both Harvard and Colgate had chances unities to win the game in regulation, but goaltender heroics on both sides sent the game to overtime.

With 15 seconds remaining in the fourth, a failed clear allowed Colgate’s Nick Gerken to shoot on McKenna, who made a beautiful save.

The Crimson then sent a long pass down to McBride on the left side, who sent a low bouncer to goal. Hettler made the stop at the buzzer.

Colgate dominated the first, taking six shots to Harvard’s two. The Raiders missed a golden opportunity to end it, as a point-blank shot bounced wide at the buzzer.

Logigian sent a laser into goal in the second overtime, winning the game 7-6 at 1:03.

“I think the offense might have relaxed a little bit more [in the second overtime],” McKenna said. “The middies did a great job getting open for clears in transition, bringing the ball back down the field.”

Colgate closed out its season with the loss, while Harvard still has a game against Dartmouth on Saturday.

“We had one goal in the first half so it couldn’t be any worse than that,” Logigian said. “We’d been having some trouble finishing on some shots and that’s something we need to work on before Saturday.”