Harvard Makes Defensive Adjustment to Defeat Bryant

An Ivy League sleeper defeated the reigning America East champion Tuesday, as Harvard improved to 2-0 on the young season with a 14-13 victory over Bryant in Cambridge, Mass.

“That’s two NCAA-tournament caliber teams,” Crimson coach Gerry Byrne said afterward on ESPN+. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see them in the NCAA tournament again.”

Graham Blake enjoyed his second straight big game for Harvard, scoring a game-high five goals. A senior attackman, Blake came into the season with nine career goals. He has 11 already this season.

“A lot of it’s confidence,” Blake said. “Most of it’s playing with a great group of guys.”

Sam King added three goals and four assists for the Crimson, who trailed 13-11 with just over 10 minutes remaining. Blake and King scored in a span of 75 seconds and Miles Botkiss netted the go-ahead goal with 6:57 left.

Harvard’s defense took care of matters from there. Five of Bryant’s last seven possessions resulted in turnovers. The other two ended in a shot clock violation and a harmless shot that hit the side of the net.

Defenseman Martin Nelson had the timeliest stick check, disrupting a pass inside with about a minute remaining. Midfielder Finn Jensen came up with a ground ball in traffic and drew a penalty. Midfielder Logan Ip evaded numerous defenders in the final minute as the Crimson maintained possession and iced the win.

Harvard caused 11 of Bryant’s 20 turnovers, helping to offset the Bulldogs’ faceoff advantage of fueled by Nathan LaLiberte’s 21-for-30 performance.

“We couldn’t guard them in the first half and then we weren’t sliding to help. I’m a slide-and-recover coach my whole life,” said Byrne, a fifth-year head coach at Harvard and former longtime defensive coordinator at Notre Dame. “We started to slide a little bit more, forcing them to spin the ball. It changed our energy.”

Bryant (2-1) was coming off a big win over Boston University, its first victory over a nationally ranked opponent since 2021 and its first 2-0 start since 2011.

Harvard (2-0) is ranked 17th in this week’s USA Lacrosse Division I Men’s Top 20.

Tuesday Roundup

In other games Tuesday:

• Penn got its first win of 2024, defeating Albany 11-7 behind a 17-save performance by goalie Emmet Carroll.UMass exploded for six unanswered goals in the second quarter and tacked on a five-goal run in the third quarter, defeating Marist 18-11.
• Twelfth-ranked Princeton eased past Manhattan 15-6, improving to 2-0 before a very difficult five-game stretch. The Tigers play their next four on the road at Maryland, North Carolina, Duke and Rutgers before returning home to open Ivy League play against Cornell.
• A nice win for Lafayette, which held off Drexel 8-7. Goalie Joe Doherty made 17 saves.