Memories of a Championship Season

With the Yard filled with students clad in down jackets and full-length winter coats, it's hard to imagine that just eight days ago the Harvard women's soccer team donned white shorts and jerseys to play its final game of the 1981 season.

But while most of the Harvard community got very bored or very drunk in New Haven last weekend, the Crimson booters completed undoubtedly their greatest campaign ever, placing fifth in the first AIAW National Tournament at the University of North Carolina.

With winter steadily approaching and the erratic Business School Field scoreboard already collecting dust in hibernation, the season is rapidly fading into the realm of memory. It's about this time that all those treks across the river to Dillon to get changed and taped, and then out to the practice field, lose their distinctiveness and melt into one all-encompassing pilgrimage.

Journey

It's about this time that all those bus rides, whether you sat up front and tried to sleep or sat in the back and gossiped, become one vague journey along the Mass Pike.

Yet certain memories remain clear. Nineteen times the booters took the field and 17 times they marched away victorious. The Crimson saved its best for last, capturing both the Ivy League and Eastern titles with overtime victories on successive weekends.

That was quite an impressive showing for a squad which lost seven of its starters from last year's varsity. To compensate for the lost manpower, coach Bob Scalise worked the booters into shape with tortuous triple sessions in early September, an experience most of the booters would like to forget. But to fill the holes from last year's lineup. Scalise looked to a bumper crop of freshmen, unquestionably the big surprise of the season.

With the newly arrived Yardlings assuming starting positions just two days before opening day, the Crimson dumped Bowdoin, 2-1, in a particularly propitious start--considering that most of the booters barely knew the names of their teammates.

From there the Crimson submerged Springfield, 4-2, in a contest noted for the squad's first successful corner kick, a play which achieved "recurring theme" status by season's end.

Harvard corner kicks made the difference in this year's Eastern tourney. With less than two minutes remaining in the Eastern semi-finals against UMass, a lofting Deb Field corner kick set up a Jeanne Piersiak goal and a come-from-behind Harvard triumph. And again, with 33 second left in the second overtime period of the following day's finals against highly touted UConn, there came a Field corner, this time to Inga Larson. It catapulted the Crimson to victory.

But, by the Easterns, the booters were accustomed to last-minute magic and come-from-behind conquests. Just a week before, in the overtime period of the Ivy Tournament finals against a fired-up Brown eleven, co-captain Cat Ferrante drilled home a rebound with 30 seconds left in the extra stanza to give the Crimson its third Ivy crown in four years.

And don't forget the second-half rallies in the Springfield match (when Harvard fallied two unanswered goals), and in the first Brown contest (when the booters notched three unmatched goals). For good measure, the Crimson concluded this year's successful campaign with four unanswered second-half goals to upend Texas A&M, and with a final overtime tally to edge Oregon for fifth spot at the Nationals.

Farewell

The Oregon victory marked the last games for senior starters Ferrante and Ellen Jakovic, reserve Sarah Chubb and co-captain Dana Warren. For veteran booters Ferrante and Jakovic, this season caps successful careers which include three Ivy titles and two Eastern crowns (one shared, the other outright) in four years.

Besides her strong all-around play and leadership on and off the field throughout the season. Ferrante will be remembered most for coming through when it counted, whether it was in overtime against Brown in the Ivy finals, or against UMass in the Eastern semis--with Harvard down by one with ten minutes left, or just her general tenacity harassing opponents on defense and hounding the opposing goal on offense.

Stalwart

Before a stress fracture sidelined her during the Ivies, Jakovic was a stalwart on the Crimson backline, using her quickness to contain speedy wingers, most notably the Bruin duo of Lisa Ching and Frances Fusco in her best game of the year in the first Brown contest.

In case you're wondering about next year, all of the Crimson starters but Ferrante and Jakovic will return ...

But before you start thinking about next year, savor the memories of this season. It was a good one.