Men’s soccer looks for second conference win against Crimson

The men’s soccer team (5-8-2, 1-3-1 Ivy) visits Harvard (4-6-5, 1-2-2 Ivy) for its final away fixture of the year’s Ivy League season, hoping to capture its first win on the road this campaign. The Light Blue has won in neutral territory, but it have yet to defeat a team in its own backyard.

The Lions faced an agonizing 3-0 home defeat against Adelphi midweek and will be aiming to put that behind them. The Lions had no shortage of chances, but could not make any of their 17 shots in the fixture count.

In their last conference outing, the Light Blue forced a 0-0 stalemate at Yale and, coincidentally, also had 17 shots in the fixture. Prior to that, they left it late to snatch a 2-1 win against Dartmouth, thanks to freshman Henning Sauerbier’s 87th minute winner. Rediscovering their clinical touch will be crucial if they are to take any points off the Crimson this weekend.

“It’s a road trip to a good conference opponent, so that’s all the motivation we need,” head coach Kevin Anderson said. “Yesterday, we discussed what went wrong against Adelphi, and now it’s a question of executing our game plan.”

“We’ve been a force whenever we’ve stuck to our plan and we need to be more accountable to each other as individuals on the field. If we can do that, the players will improve the play of their teammates around them and it’ll be a better performance from us.”

Sauerbier leads the Columbia attack with four goals and two assists this season, and senior striker Bayo Adafin is one goal behind the German. Junior winger Francois Anderson, sophomore forward Will Stamatis, and freshman midfielder David Najem have all netted twice this campaign and they—amongst others—will be crucial to the Lions’ hopes of snatching a victory in Massachusetts.

Adafin is hoping the fixture allows the Light Blue to turn its fortune around. “The last couple games haven’t gone our way,” he said. “We felt we lost two points at Yale, so we’re hungry to pick up three more points in the Ivies and try to end the season in style.“

The Crimson will be looking to end a bad streak of their own, as it has not tasted victory since Oct. 6, when it beat Holy Cross 1-0. Harvard has lost their last three consecutive fixtures by a 2-1 scoreline to Dartmouth, Princeton, and Boston College. Prior to that, the team earned draws against Brown (0-0) and Cornell (1-1) in conference play. Its lone conference win came against Yale, when it emerged victorious by a 1-0 scoreline thanks to a goal by midfielder Scott Prozeller.

Striker Brian Rogers leads the Crimson in the points as well as goal-scoring, and Prozeller has been a potent attacking force for Harvard this season as well. The midfielder has notched three goals this term, including a strike from a set-piece against Princeton, and will be one to watch out for.

The Lions’s record against the Crimson is one the current unit will be looking to remedy: Harvard has triumphed in each of the last five encounters, with the Light Blue’s last victory coming in 2003. In the corresponding fixture last year, Harvard snatched a 2-1 win in overtime at Columbia Soccer Stadium through goals by Rogers and Alex Chi, after Mike Mazzullo had given the Lions the lead.

Adafin spoke about the often unspoken intense rivalry between the sides and the effect on the players. “A win there would be a good way to add a sense of pride to our season,” he said. ”They’ve been good in recent years, and last year, we had a very close game, but they just edged it. They’ve been in a mature state as a team, and to be able to be competitive when we play them and give them a strong fight is good for our program. Emotions always run high when we play them, and tomorrow won’t be any different.”

Kickoff at Ohiri Field is tomorrow, Saturday, Nov. 9, at 1:30 p.m.