Laxmen Thunder Past UConn; Meagher Ignites 20-10 Charge

The Harvard laxmen snapped their losing streak at one and jumped back on the winning track Saturday afternoon, with a sluggish but still decisive 20-10 win over the outclassed University of Connecticut Huskies at the Business School Field.

Not one to waste time, midfielder Vic Kazanjian led off the Crimson's offensive thrust. Just nine seconds into the contest, he took a fastbreak feed from co-captain Pete Predun and shot past the out-stretched stick of UConn goalie Peter Schwartz for tally number one.

Dogged

The Huskies answered that first goal barely a minute later and then played over their heads, sustaining enough offensive resilience to stay on the Crimson's tail for the next five minutes.

Deciding enough was enough, hard-shooting Harvard freshman Brendan Meagher fired in one of his patented long cannonball shots for the first third of a personal first-quarter hat trick, igniting a five-tally surge by the stickmen.

With this sudden burst, Meagher, with the help of attackmen Rich Rainaldi and Gary Pedroni, made the hapless Huskies look like leftover drowning victims from the Adams House raft race.

Pedroni opened the second quarter and closed the Crimson drive with a garbage shot from the crease. The lithe sophomore battled two inept Huskies, got his stick on the ball and shoved it in with a pocket full of turf following to give the stickmen a comfortable 9-3 lead.

Down, but not ready to give up, the scrappy Huskies scrounged for two, sandwiching another Crimson tally. Credit an alert Mike Davis with that middle score. He stayed to play while the rest of the Harvard squad went out to lunch.

Norm Forbush woke the Harvard squad from its brief slumber when he racked up the winning goal at 7:33 in the second stanza. That capped off Forbush's hat trick. Also pitching in with two assists on the afternoon, the flashy sophomore ran his totals to 11 and 21. A total offensive output of 32 points gives Forbush third position in the team statistics, trailing Predun and Pedroni.

That highscoring duo bagged one each in the first two minutes of the second half to finish off productive afternoons before coach Bob Scalise went to the bench and brought in the capable Crimson back-ups.

Attackman John Pendergast snared his first and second goals of the 1980 season in the latter half of the game when veteran middie Terry Trusty pegged him with a feed moments before a pursuing defender lunged at him. Pendergast, the biggest member of the Harvard team, notched number one with a nice dodge toward the cage.

The final quarter gave Rainaldi a chance to pick up a third goal, as he joined Forbush and Meagher to share high scoring honors. In that same frame, two more names were added to the list of Crimson scorers this season. Ray Sphire and Jim Acheson each contributed a first.

With this win, the Crimson ran its record to 9-2. The team will travel to Amherst Tuesday afternoon to take on the powerful UMass Minutemen.

Every game means life or death for the Crimson's NCAA playoff hopes. With the topsy-turvy events of the past week, wins against UMass and Division II national champion Adelphi next Saturday would make the Harvard squad's chances of being selected for one of the coveted eight playoff berths a strong probability.