Crimson rolls over against men's lax, Sowanick shines

The Harvard men's lacrosse team was left shaking its head on Saturday at the 13-4 parting gift given to it by the Tigers. Although the Orange and Black were favored to win, Crimson (5-5 overall, 1-3 Ivy League) probably was not expecting such a trouncing, considering last season's loss was by only four goals.

Indeed it may have been the memory of Harvard's tenacity that motivated Princeton to get an early lead.

Seven minutes into the game, it was obvious Princeton (7-2, 3-0) had come to Jordan Field with the caliber of play that has made it a consistently top-ranked team.

"We really weren't sure what they were going to run and who they were as a team," freshman attack Pete Trombino explained. "We knew we wanted to win decisively because we wanted to establish ourselves."

Freshman attack Scott Sowanick opened the scoring at 10 minutes, 43 seconds. Barely giving Harvard a chance to reset, junior attack Jason Doneger followed up Sowanick's goal by successfully rushing the net a mere 43 seconds later.

Capitalizing on Harvard's breakdown, senior attack Ryan Boyle raised the score to 3-0 a minute later, and pressing the team's advantage, Sowanick scored again a minute later ending the burst of scoring that resulted in four goals in three short minutes.

Junior midfield Mac Bryson attributed "great shooting" to the team's early success. "Guys really hit their shots early on," he said.

After a brief lull in scoring, Trombino continued his offensive success this season by boosting Princeton's lead to five to close the first quarter.

"I think we had a lot of energy at the beginning of the game, everyone was excited to play," Trombino commented. "I think we moved the ball well on offense and played well on defense. Overall we just played very well as a team."

Trombino has contributed at least one goal in all nine games this season, bringing him one game shy of tying the team record for most consecutive games with at least one goal to start a freshman season.

Doneger, also a perennially prolific scorer, dominated the second quarter with help from senior attack Ryan Boyle. Doneger put away three goals in the second quarter, all thanks to feeds from Boyle.

The Crimson finally managed to get on the scoreboard with six minutes to go, but by the end of the second quarter the Tigers had built a healthy 9-1 lead.

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"We had sort of the same lead last year at halftime, and they came back," Bryson explained. "So that was sort of a fear of ours this year."

Although action slackened a bit in the third quarter, the Tigers continued their offensive success with sophomore midfield Jim O'Brien chalking up two goals and Sowanick chipping in another. With eight seconds left in the third quarter, Harvard managed to slip another goal in the net, bringing the tally at the end of the third quarter to 12-2.

Scrambling to come back, the Crimson did manage to out-hustle the Tigers in the fourth quarter. Although out-shooting Princeton 16-6, Harvard only managed to successfully convert two of those shots into goals — hardly enough to overcome the Tigers' sound defensive effort.

"I think defensively we shut down a team that was quick and had the potential to be very dangerous," Bryson said. "We just stopped them, and they had very few shots on goal. It was just complete domination by our defense."

The game can be taken as a good sign in seeing how far the Tigers have come to integrate the freshmen and regain the consistency and confidence that has kept them a top-ranked team.

The win makes Princeton the only unbeaten team in the league. The Tigers will have to keep up their high level of play for the last stretch of Ivy League games.