Men’s Lacrosse: Terriers Knock-Off Fourteenth Ranked Harvard on the Road
By: Matt Doherty
With just under a minute to go in the fourth quarter, Harvard attackmen Morgan Cheek found himself in front of the Boston University net trailing by only a goal, however Cheeks ensuing shot was saved by BU goalkeeper Christian Carson-Banister clinching an impressive 9-8 road victory over the No.14 Harvard Crimson.
The Terriers rode the back of the junior goalie who recorded 13 saves and continuously stifled the Crimson offense from getting on the scoreboard with big save after big save.
Despite giving up a goal in the opening nine seconds as well as another goal a minute later, BU rallied back in the first half, answering every Harvard goal with a goal of their own. A Chad Bell goal with 3:48 remaining in the second quarter, completed the comeback and tied the game at five apiece heading into halftime.
The 15 minutes following the intermission were completely dominated by Boston University. Pat Myers opened up the third quarter festivities with his second goal of the night, giving BU their first lead of the game.
From there, junior midfielder Cal Dearth took over the game on the offensive end, scoring three consecutive goals at the end of third quarter and the waning minutes of the fourth quarter, to give the Terriers a 9-5 lead with a little over nine minutes to play in the contest.
However, the Crimson finally figured it out how to score on Carson-Banister late in the fourth quarter. One of the nation’s leader scorers, junior attackman Devin Dwyer, got the comeback started for Harvard scoring the team’s first goal of the half with seven minutes left in the game. Cheek added the next two goals for Harvard, the last one coming with a minute and a half remaining to cut the lead to just one.
The Crimson had a great opportunity in the final minute with a man advantage to tie the game but Carson-Banister made his biggest save of the night to halt the Harvard comeback. The Terriers ran out the last 30 seconds of the clock to escape Harvard Stadium with arguably their biggest win in program history.
With the win, BU is now 7-2, 2-1 PL on the season, already exceeding their win total from the 2015 campaign. Meanwhile, Harvard has now dropped four games in a row, dropping them to 4-4 on the season.
Leading scorers James Burr and Jack Wilson were held to a combined 1 goal on 11 shots but Dearth (4 goals, 2 assists) and Myers (2 goals) helped the offensive attack for the Terriers. Bell, Wilson, and Greg Farris also added goals for BU. Dwyer scored four goals to lead the Crimson in the losing effort.
The Terriers also won the groundball battle 42-28 and despite an off night for his standards, stellar faceoff man and Tewaaraton Award hopeful Sam Talkow still won 11 out of 19 faceoffs.
The story of the night though was Carson-Banister who’s 13 saves and strong play in net all night long was a main contributor to the program’s highest win over a ranked opponent in school history.
Sitting at 7-2, the Terriers will now enter a month plus of Patriot League games beginning with a road trip to Lafayette on Saturday and a chance to build off a program defining win in just its third season as a Division 1 team.