With the beautiful mountains as the backdrop, the No. 5 Denver Pioneers defeated the Harvard Crimson 3-1. Fans filled into the stadium at Ciber Field to support the Pioneers and fill their appetites with $1 hot dogs.
Denver began with an onslaught of possession combined with a multitude of shots on cage right after kickoff. This offensive pressure led to the first goal of the night scored in the 24th minute by Denver’s senior Andre Shinyashiki (Sao Paulo, Brazil). Shinyashiki turned with an amazing one touch to slot it past the Harvard keeper to get his first goal of the night and ninth on the season. The Denver goal was assisted by senior Kenny Akamatsu (Niigata, Japan).
The Pioneer offensive continued to pressure Crimson defensive that was beginning to bend under the continuous attack. Two yellow cards were awarded to Harvard within two minutes of each other.
In the 27th minute, the Denver Pioneers broke through the back line of Harvard with a ball played over the top by Shinyashiki to redshirt freshman Brooks Crawford (Greenwood Village, Colo.) who was left all alone with the Harvard keeper. Crawford would score his first goal of the season and of his collegiate career with the assist coming from freshman Callum Stretch (Encino, Calif.) and Shinyashiki.
With a 2-0 lead and the crowd behind them, the Pioneers would continue to press forward in looks for a third goal before the half. A few more attempts were taken by Denver to increase their lead, and Harvard had the last shot going into the safe hands of redshirt senior goalie Nick Gardner (Marvin, N.C.) to end the first half.
At the start of the second half, Harvard looked to get past their two goal deficit and played to get back a goal. However, Denver had other plans as the Pioneers continued to show great class through teamwork and skill that could not be matched by their opponent.
Heading into the 65th minute, the Pioneers began to push up the field on a counter attack with a ball played to the center of the field by freshman Liam Johnson (Golden, Colo.). Sophomore Jacob Stensson (Stockholm, Sweden) was the receiver of this pass whom then in turn sent a tremendous switching ball to Shinyashiki on the left side. Shinyashiki was left one-on-one with a Harvard defender, where Shinyashiki took a step to his right and curled the ball past the outstretched hands of the keeper. Shinyashiki ended the night with ten goals on the season as he continues to increase his career goal tally to 33.
Denver continued to place pressure on the Harvard backline, but Harvard was able to create their fair share of chances and eventually score in the 77th minute.
Overall, Denver led many of the offensive stats as the Pioneers took eighteen shots with twelve going on-goal over Harvard’s eight shots with only two on-goal. Denver also lead in corners as they took six of the ten during the night.
Denver continued their unbeaten streak into Sunday where they beat No. 22 San Francisco 3-0 to go 6-0-1 on the season. Shinyashiki netted a SportsCenter top-10 worthy hat trick to take his season total to 36 goals. The Pioneers will look to keep their undefeated streak as the team travel to University of Omaha on Saturday to begin their campaign in the Summit League.
