Booters Finish Third at Ivies

NEW HAVEN, Conn.--Two out of three ain't bad, but it ain't enough either.

The second-seeded Harvard women's soccer team finished third over the weekend in the Ivy League tournament with a 5-0 win over Cornell in Friday's opening round, a heartbreaking 2-1 loss to Brown in the semis Saturday morning and a 3-0 shutout win against Yale for third place Saturday afternoon.

In the tournament finals Saturday afternoon, Brown and top-seeded Princeton battled for 100 scoreless minutes before Bruin forward Cameron Tuttle knocked in two goals, at 3:11 and at 9:02 of the second overtime, to ice Brown's first-ever Ivy tournament championship.

For the first time in the tournament's three-year history, Harvard did not take home the championship. However, the booters surely played well-enough to win.

From Crimson co-captains Sue St.Louis and Gia Johnson down to the last reserve, the team played superb soccer all weekend. And without doubt, the Crimson peaked its emotion and its skills over the Brown game, one of the most exciting soccer contests one could ever hope to see.

"We played really, really well today," Crimson coach Bob Scalise said after the match, with strong emphasis on the "reallys."

But along with the excellent play of both teams, the Harvard-Brown confrontation was unfortunately marred by two rather odd occurrences.

The first lies in the sportsmanship of two of the Brown players. At times in the second half, it was hard to tell which held more importance for Brown: winning the game and moving into the finals, or mugging Harvard striker Laurie Gregg and putting her out of the game.

With Brown leading 2-1 and about 25 minutes to go in the game, Gregg went down at the feet of Brown midfielder Darcy Fernald. As Gregg started to get up, Fernald clamped her legs tight around the Harvard player's head so that she couldn't move. And then as she finally let go, Fernald looked down and drove her foot into Gregg's face.

Gregg had to leave the game, but, as she always does, returned shortly. Not to be left out of the action, Brown freshman Cheryl Stahl went after Gregg next, and as they lay on the ground side by side, commenced in kicking the Harvard striker's legs. Central Park was never like this.

The game's second mystery concerns Brown's second goal. Did anybody see it? Scalise didn't and neither did many of the Harvard players.

The confusion resulted when the ball went out of bounds off one of the Brown players. As one referee signaled Harvard throw-in, Scalise turned around to signal some of his substitutes into the game. But the other official ruled play on, and rumor has it that Brown's flashy forward Frances Fusco scored from the right side of the penalty area. No matter how it happened, it went into the scorer's book as a goal, and a win, for the Bruins.

Gregg, who had an outstanding tournament with three goals and three assists in three games, had given the Crimson a 1-0 half-time lead with her ninth goal of the season on a direct kick.

Roaring Back

But the Bruins came roaring back in the second half, as Midfielder Laura Maciuika drove a wind-aided ball over Crimson keeper Ann Diamond at 10:50 and Fusco converted three minutes later.

Harvard put intense pressure on the Brown defense for the remainder of the game, but could come no closer to overtime than a Johnson blast which hit the crossbar with about ten minutes left. Brown's outstanding sweeper Yvonne Goldsberry made the difference at the end, continually clearing the ball from in front of the net.

The anticlimax of the game with Yale, which started only 50 minutes after the game with Brown ended, boosted the Crimson's spirits if nothing else.

Freshman striker Joan Elliott scored her second game-winning goal of the tournament (she also picked up the first tally in the shutout against Cornell) at 26:18 of the first half and Cat Ferrante and Ellen Jakovic added second-half scores to carry the Crimson past the Elis.

TOURNAMENT NOTES: After the finals, the All-Ivy League team was announced. St.Louis and Elliott were named to the first team, while Gregg, and sophomores Kelley Gately, Laura Mayer and Jeannie Piersiak garnered second team honors.