It doesn’t get much bigger or better than what’s going to take place in Cambridge on Saturday afternoon.
Two weeks from the start of the Ivy League tournament, No. 9 Harvard has a chance to make a very, very loud statement against No. 1 Cornell at Jordan Field in front of what’s expected to be a sold out crowd.
Not only is it a chance to knock off a rival and the top-ranked team in the country, but it’s a chance for the Crimson to showcase the phenomenal atmosphere that’s been created around game days on campus, particularly over the last few years. The best, most recent example is the game against Virginia a year ago.
This one could blow it out of the water.
On top of Senior Day celebrations, five food trucks, stuff for kids, free T-shirts and a whole bunch of other events and activities will be available. Oh, and it’s supposed to be about 80 degrees.
If you’re a lacrosse fan, Cambridge is the place to be on Saturday.
“This is kind of a big deal,” Harvard head coach Gerry Byrne said in a phone interview this week. “I’m not sure the last time a No. 1 team was here, but this should be a great day of lacrosse for people to come out and see a great game against two very good teams.”
This is a stellar matchup of elite players and teams. Cornell enters the game with the top-ranked offense in the country, scoring 16 goals per game. The team behind them? Harvard (tied with Fairfield) at 15 goals per game. Not only that, but this will be a battle of two Tewaaraton Award candidates in Cornell’s CJ Krist – who is arguably the best player in the country – and Harvard’s Sam King.
King leads the Crimson with 56 points (32 goals and 24 assists). Kirst has an absurd 74 points and 54 goals.
So, how do you stop Kirst? Well, it’ll be a team effort, but Byrne believes in what he coaches defensively. He also believes his go-to offensive players (Jack Speidell is 10th in the country with 37 goals) can hang with the juggernaut that is the Big Red too.
“I’ve been coaching the same defense for 20 years. So, it’s not that you don’t make little adjustments or tweaks here and there, but I’m not interested in coaching three different defenses,” Byrne said with a chuckle. “I think we’re either the first or second most efficient offense in the country. We have a pretty good player here too.
“Our guys are competing against one of the two best offenses in the country. So, they’re getting pretty good preparation several times a week. We tend to be really consistent about what we do and we don’t freak out on matchups and switches and things like that. We play the way that we play and it tends to put us in situations in the fourth quarter where we’re in every game where we’re coming back or holding somebody off.
“Listen, Cornell is super talented. It’s going to be a challenge, but Syracuse had a great offense. Notre Dame had a great offense. Princeton had a good offense. It’s a challenge every week. This might be a little more different because it’s the presumed Tewaaraton winner and the drama of a Top-10 game in Boston, but we tend to do what we like to do.”
The old cliche about not making a regular season game bigger than it is applies here, but only slightly. There’s no denying this one is certainly a bit bigger than the ones in February or early March.
“I always think less is more,” said Byrne. “They’re aware. They look at the rankings even though you tell them not to. They’re watching polls. They see comments on social media. Even though you tell your guys not to do it, this is a generation that grew up that way. You don’t have to talk about (the magnitude) of it, it’s self evident.
“But, you also try to find ways to take the air out of it and to not make it bigger than it’s already going to be. As a coach, you walk the fine line between your normal preparation, your normal messaging, your normal procedure…but, they recognize it’s a big deal. Two Top-10 teams playing in Boston which hasn’t happened a lot. The atmosphere is going to be the atmosphere. Don’t make it bigger than the world already sees it as.”
Byrne’s confidence is buoyed by the fact that Harvard has played in some big time atmospheres already the past few seasons and handled themselves quite well, particularly against Syracuse earlier this season.
“I think about where we’ve been since last spring,” he said. “We had the sold out game against Virginia. We had a sold out game against Brown last year. We played the Dutch national team in Barcelona. We played Notre Dame at a sold out field in Chicago this fall. We played Syracuse in the dome. We have great crowds at Jordan Field. Like, part of what we’re trying to do is make Jordan a destination here in Boston and we’ve done that.
“Wherever we’re traveling we’re playing really good teams in front of really good crowds…I’m not saying our guys are kind of numb, or not blind to it. But, they also know that we work hard to create these environments and atmospheres. They look forward to it and they look for that energy to kind of drive their effort and feelings about the game.”
A loss on Saturday won’t keep Harvard from (hopefully) making a run to the NCAA Final Four just down the road at Gillette Stadium on Memorial Day weekend, but a win could certainly propel the Crimson and give them serious momentum heading into the postseason.
Either way, it should be one of a show.
“You’ve got two of the best attackmen in college lacrosse in Sam and CJ. Last time Cornell was here we defeated them, so I know that’s probably not going to be lost on them,” Byrne added. “We just want to make this kind of as seismic of an event as we can for Boston.”
