Stickwomen Close Campaign, Drop 2-1 Squeaker to UNH

SPRINGFIELD--The Harvard field hockey team had no right to be here in the quarterfinals of the EAIAW championships, what with its 4-7-4 record which included an 0-for-1980 mark against Division I teams.

And it surely had no right to tread on the same field with the nation's second-ranked team, the University of New Hampshire (12-0-3)--the tournament's number one seed and the most talented squad this side of Penn State.

But the Crimson has done the unexpected all season long--both in a negative and positive sense--and it saved its best, and most unexpected, performance for last.

Dominating play at both ends of the field, Harvard came within a heartbeat of knocking off the Wildcats here yesterday, settling for a superbly played, 2-1 loss that eliminated the stickwomen from the tournament and ended their 1980 season.

After watching Ivy rivals Yale and Dartmouth fall in earlier first round action, the Crimson trotted on to the artificial surface at Benedum Field and played its finest contest of the season. For the first time all year, both the offense and defense had splendid games, beating the highly-touted Wildcats to the ball at both ends and conjuring up imaginative, almost mystical moves once they got it.

Significantly, the stickwomen scored first. All season long, they have played their best games when they tally the first goal--in the five games in which they scored first, they went unbeaten and piled up all four regular season wins.

And, fittingly, they lost it on a penalty shot. For the third time this season, Harvard was penalized with a seven-yard penalty shot for an infraction which, in the referee's opinion, stopped a sure goal. For the third time, the opposition converted--and like the loss at Dartmouth and tie with Cornell, it proved the difference between success and failure.

Soph Sensation

After winning the opening bully, the magical sophomore from Woburn, Kate Martin, nudged a rebound past UNH goalie Robin Balducci eight minutes into the game to give Harvard a 1-0 lead. The early tally vitalized the Crimson: forwards Martin, Sue Field and Lili Pew managed to keep the ball in the Wildcat zone for 14 of the next 16 minutes, and support from links Elaine Kellogg, Ann Velie and Maureen Finn snuffed out the two UNH attacks.

Pew and Martin provided the key to the spurt of excellent hockey--the squad's finest quarter-hour in two years--with defensive efficiency up front. The former highlighted the effort with a 75-yd. clear from deep in her own zone, while the latter dropped further back than usual from her position as cherrypicker to aid the defensive cause with her speed and stick work.

New Hampshire managed to put together a series of drives in the final minutes of the first half, but the Harvard defense, led by freshmen sweeper Beth Mullen and freshmen goalkeeper Juliet Lamont, did not give.

Effectively shutting down speedy all-East midfielders Carla Hesler and Cheryl Murtagh, Mullen ranged from sideline to sideline to perform the three-fold duties of the sweeper: pursue, stop and clear.

And Lamont was at her best as well. Perhaps she had jitters inside, but if so, none of the 200 fans present could tell. Moving out of the crease to confront the Wildcat offense all day, she racked up 14 pad saves including a sparkling one-two combination which robbed Hesler and Gabrielle Horoules as the first half closed.

More than perhaps any other sport, momentum controls field hockey. Harvard had the momentum entering the second half, and almost doubled its margin two minutes into the stanza when Pew clanged a low liner off the post from eight feet out.

But nothing turns the tide of a contest like a penalty shot. Outplayed by the Crimson on the field and the stat sheets, UNH got the game's only big break at 13:09, when three stickwomen were called for deliberate obstruction in the circle, a breach of field hockey scripture which calls for the seven-yard death penalty.

Some teams miss penalty shots, they really do. But against the Crimson, everybody suddenly turns sharpshooter and Hesler knotted the affair at one when she flipped the ball past Lamont for the score.

Feast

Just six minutes later the Wildcats added the gamewinner. It came on a two-on-one breakaway which totally immobilized the perfectly positioned Lamont. The freshmen effectively blocked off the onrushing Haroules, but New Hampshire's senior tri-captain fed Janet Greene with a perfect cross to give the Wildcats a 2-1 lead they never relinquished.

To coach Edie MacAusland's credit, her team did not collapse in the waning moments, but continued to press the UNH midfield. The Wildcats played like the region's best when the going got tough, however, keeping the momentum to run out the clock for the win.