Victory was simply meant to be for Harvard head coach Gerry Byrne. 

In his return to Chaminade - where he started his lacrosse career - the Class of '82 grad led his fourth-ranked Harvard Crimson to a runaway 19-10 triumph over the upset-minded Marquette Golden Eagles on the final day of February.

Byrne, a Levittown native, didn't join the prestigious Chaminade lacrosse program until his senior year of high school, when he played under the tutelage of legendary Flyers head coach Jack Moran. Since leaving 340 Jackson Avenue, Byrne has played lacrosse both collegiately and professionally, as well as coaching at St. Anselm College, Notre Dame, and now Harvard, where he's in his seventh season.

"This is the most important place in my life. It changed the trajectory of my life," reflected Byrne on his time at Chaminade. "It taught me all the values that I live by - the value of hard work, and having pride in things that matter. This is a powerful thing to be back here."

Although Harvard won by nine goals in Byrne's homecoming, for a while it looked like Marquette might spoil the party. In fact, the Golden Eagles found the back of the net five times in the game's first 8:17, putting the Crimson in a tough spot right out of the gate.

Marquette found the early advantage by capitalizing off faceoff violations and uncharacteristic mistakes by Harvard. The Golden Eagles held the ball for the first 2:43 of the game and scored three times before the Crimson had a single possession. 

This trend continued for the majority of the first quarter. Marquette peppered Crimson goalie Graham Stevens with 13 shots, a number of which clanged off the post. Junior attacker Tucker Mullen led the way with three goals in the frame to build a lead that was as large as four for his Golden Eagles.

Eventually, Byrne and the Crimson settled things down. With three minutes to play in the first, Nathan Cobery buried a tough shot in the bottom right corner of the cage to make it a 5-2 game. The goal ignited a remarkable 14-2 run that lasted all the way into the third frame and put the Crimson in firm control of the contest.

After an uneven beginning, Harvard was humming.

It all started on defense, where the Crimson buckled down big time, preventing Marquette from developing sustained possessions and limiting open looks on net.

"I think we were surprised about how physically they were dodging, and we were on our heels," admitted Byrne. "Once we started confronting that energy and physicality, we were able to guard them and play the rest of the possession really well."

Offensively, it was The Jack Speidell Show, as the East Setauket-native and Preseason Tewaaraton Award Watch List nominee racked up seven goals and a career-high nine points.

"He gets face-guarded a lot in games, so he's just unbelievably selfless and high-IQ," Byrne raved about his star attacker. "He's like a great tight end. He's always lurking in open spaces, and people who have the ball know that when he catches it, he can put it away."

While Speidell may have dominated with his nine-point performance, Harvard enjoyed a full team effort on offense, with 10 players registering a point. Complementing Speidell were Cobery and Teddy Malone, each of whom had multiple goals. 

"We constantly work on spacing and not taking mediocre shots. We didn't take any bad shots," explained Byrne. "We kept the pressure on the goalie, and since we were all taking really good shots, he wasn't going to get any gimmes."

"I think, as a whole offense, we really just reached a flow state after the first quarter," added Speidell. "As we started to can some goals, we just continued to do so and kept it going the whole game."

In net, the sophomore Stevens tallied eight saves - none bigger than an early third-quarter stop on Carsen Brandt that would've trimmed Harvard's lead to just two. 

Despite the loss, Marquette put forth a valiant effort. The Golden Eagles were led by the trio of Brandt, Mullen, and Jake Bair, each of whom scored three times. In goal, Lucas Lawas matched Stevens with eight saves. 

For Marquette, the defeat dropped its record to 2-3, with all three losses to ranked opponents: No. 20 Michigan (who is currently unranked), No. 7 Notre Dame, who currently tops the Inside Lacrosse national poll, and now No. 4 Harvard. 

For Harvard, the victory was a strong follow-up to the previous weekend's historic win over the then-No.1 Syracuse Orange - the first time in program history that the Crimson defeated the top-ranked team in the polls. 

But this afternoon belonged to Gerry Byrne, who led his team to victory in a special game at a special place - a day 44 years in the making for a lax lifer.