The Fucito File

I first found out about Michael Fucito, Harvard's prized left-winger, when the Crimson came to Rhodes Field in September.

Penn won that game, 3-1, and that was the best I've seen the team play all year. But Harvard's short, speedy #17 caught my eye. On more than one occasion, he left sophomore John Elicker - one of Penn's best defenders - in the dust. I remember thinking that if he was as good controlling the ball as he was running to catch up to it, the Quakers would have been in trouble.

Well, it seems like the Westford, Mass. native has found that control. In his last two games, the sophomore has three goals and four assists. Two of the goals came in Harvard's whitewashing of then-No. 14 Brown in Providence last weekend. Then on Tuesday, Fucito traveled to my hometown of Worcester, Mass. and dropped another goal and assist in a win over Holy Cross. Thanks in large part to Fucito, Harvard has put up an impressive 11 goals in its last 180 minutes, is on a five-game winning streak and is now ranked #25.

And one day before the Holy Cross win, Soccer Times named Fucito its national player for the week of October 9-15. (He had, after all, gotten the golden goal against Fairfield on Oct. 9.)

With the emergence of Fucito and the presence of Charles Altchek and young Andre Akpan, Harvard might have the best offense in the Ivy League. So as Penn heads up to New Haven to play slumping Yale this evening, one can't help feeling that the Quakers chose the right time to meet their rivals from the Bay State. The question is, can they take advantage of their good fortune?