Performance and Ambition

FrancescaDenHartog

As far as Harvard women's lacrosse goes, only one name is important. Or so it seems. What with Francesca DenHartog splashed all over the Harvard record books, it's hard to imagine anyone else could have made a difference.

And while the lax women's steady climb towards national prominence the past few years has been due to the combined efforts of some of the finest athletes ever to play the sport, no one has sparkled like DenHartog.

The Weston, Mass. native's domination during the past four years has gained her almost every Harvard record. Her six Crimson marks (for goals and points scored) figure to keep her name mentioned with the best for many years to come.

Only Mark Fusco would challenge DenHartog for the number of accolades she pulled in. The two-time consensus All-American and two-time consensus Ivy League Player of the Year took All-Ivy honors all four years and was selected to the U.S. National team.

Unlike most of Harvard's women athletes, DenHartog spent all her energies making just one of the Crimson squads into a winner. While many of her lacrosse teammates were busy playing one, sometimes two, other sports. DenHartog was always preparing for Harvard's lacrosse season.

Perhaps that's why it was so disappointing to watch the team DenHartog had so single-handedly turned into a winner come so close to four national championships and then never win one. To watch her steady, flashy play, you couldn't help but think she deserved a national championship of her own.

Now that the laxwomen have established themselves as championship contenders, DenHartog must move on. As Lili Pew, who succeeds DenHartog as next year's captain, says, she "has left us with something we can carry on."

Maureen Finn

Speaking of Francesca DenHartog without Maureen Finn, however would be like speaking of Tinkers without Evers or Chance. Over the past four years, DenHartog to Finn--or for that matter. Finn to DenHartog--became one of the deadliest double play combinations in Harvard history.

And as the most potent scoring machine women's lacrosse has ever seen, Finn and DenHartog turned the Harvard program into one of the nation's finest. But DenHartog's flashy style was no match for Finn, whose steady play often went unnoticed.

"She may not be as flashy as others," Crimson Coach Carole Kleinfelder said earlier this year. "But I doubt there's anyone around who's as consistent."

By season's end this year, there might not have been anyone around who was even as good. Her first three years, Finn had expertly directed the Crimson attack, claiming every Harvard record for assists. But the Malvern, Pa. native's game soared this year, as her goals came in record numbers.

The two-time All American's efforts were one of the key reasons the laxwomen reached the NCAA quarterfinals the past four years. But the national championship the club never won was perhaps what hurt Finn most.

"To have a team that could have been so good and really could have won the whole thing is a little disappointing," this year's Ivy League Player of the Year says. "But it's been really exciting to see how well the team has improved each year."

And to get a grasp on just how important Finn has been to the Harvard women's program, you must understand that not only was she perhaps the best ever women's lacrosse player but also one of the best ever field hockey players.

"Mo always seemed to be there with her reliable, steady stick," Harvard Field Hockey Coach Edie Mabrey says. "She was always the steady influence out there."

The two-year field hockey co-captain and All-Ivy defenseman also donated her efforts to the founding of the Harvard Radcliffe Foundation for Women's Athletics, a support group for women's athletics.

"She was just so special," Mabrey says. "Her support--on and off the field--will never be duplicated."

Pat Horne

People probably won't remember much about Pat Horne. Not that there's not a lot to remember.

The record books will show that the Weymouth, Mass, native garnered All-Ivy honors in softball for two years in a row and that she captained the Crimson's 1982 and 1983 women's basketball teams and the 1983 softball squad.

But Horne never had the luxury most athletes, women athletes in particular, enjoy--playing on a championship team. The closest Horne came to a real winner was last year's 12--7 softball club. And without the winning teams, the psychology concentrator gained little attention.

"It's disappointing that we never really did as well as we thought we could," she says. "The potential was always there, but something always seemed to go wrong."

What went wrong this year was that Horne fractured her hand halfway through the season. Without her aggressive play on the floor, Harvard suffered through yet another disappointing season.

And three weeks into the softball season, Horne moved from the gym to the diamond, where she quickly continued the excellence she had demonstrated her two previous years as the Crimson's third baseman.

"Pat always joined us a few weeks into the season," Harvard Softball Coach John Wentzell says. "But once she came out, she never missed a practice, stayed late at practice and worked the hardest of anyone out there."

Through her quiet leadership, Wentzell says, Horne set an example for the young Crimson squad. But after a quick 5--0 start this year. The batwomen full on hard times---again. The squad ended with a losing record, the sixth out of seven Harvard clubs that Horne has played on to finish below .500.

Through it all, however, the talented All-Ivy third baseman has taken it in stride. "I've been able to do things here that I wouldn't have been able to do anywhere else," she says, explaining the less talented squads have meant more playing time for her.

"And really it's been a lot of fun," she adds. "A little more winning would have made it nicer, but the little things have made it all worth it."

Kate Martin

To see the frustration on Kate Martin's face after the Harvard women's lacrosse squad dropped a heartbreaking 7-6 loss in this year's NCAA quarterfinals was to see the culmination of four of the hardest, yet happiest, years of her athletic life.

And for the Crimson's three-sport standout, the pain didn't seem fair.

After all, this was the Harvard star who had given possibly more of herself than any other Crimson athlete. In the 12 athletic seasons Martin spent in Cambridge, she spent 10 of them on the Crimson playing fields. And after enduring seemingly endless losing seasons in field hockey and basketball, the success of the lacrosse squad was a deserving and pleasant change. So the frustrating loss in her final collegiate game hurt.

"Winning in lacrosse was a pleasant change," says Martin, who took to the lacrosse fields for the first time ever in her junior year. "That last loss was pretty disappointing."

But to the Woburn, Mass, native, the tough seasons of field hockey and basketball were made easier by the camaraderie Martin found with her teammates. "The greatest part of the whole experience--whether winning or losing--has been the people I've met," she says. "They've made it all worth it."

Martin made her debut on Soldiers Field with an inept field hockey squad. Four years later, though, the squad had become one of the nation's best--thanks largely to Captain Kate Martin. The Crimson finished this year with an 11-2-3 record, its first-ever national ranking (19) and Martin as its scoring leader.

And thanks to her herculean efforts, Martin garnered All-American honors, the first Harvard stickwomen ever to do so. "Kate was always there for us," Harvard Coach Edie Mabrey says of the four-time All-Ivy selection and current U.S. field hockey squad member. "No one deserved the honor more."

As fall turned to winter, Martin quickly moved to basketball. As captain this year, the four-year starter Boston banker-to-be saw the squad finish 7-17.

The past two years, however, Martin moved from the indoor basketball confines to the green grass of lacrosse. "Carole [Kleinfelder] had asked me to come out a few times," Martin says of her former basketball coach and current lacrosse coach. "It seemed like a fast game and a lot of fun."

In the two years she was a member of the Crimson lacrosse squad, Martin anchored a steady defense that became one of the nation's finest. And don't let her tell you--as she so modestly will--that it was others who were chiefly responsible. Coaches and players say that her efforts were a key reason both the field hockey and lacrosse programs reached national prominence.

Jennifer White

If Kate Martin isn't the finest all-around athlete graduating today, her roommate Jennifer White might be. While Martin took the spotlight for 10 of her 12 athletic seasons here. White did her one better, skipping only the winter season of her freshman year.

But unlike Martin, White made ice hockey her winter home. And when she stepped on the ice and began playing the game for the first time ever in her sophomore year, the Brookline, Mass, native used her field hockey and lacrosse skills to quickly become one of the Crimson's most talented icewomen.

While White never achieved the wide honors that accompany most three-sport athletes, she attained notoriety as possibly the finest all-around athlete Harvard has ever seen. Rarely has one person been such an instrumental part of three championship teams.

In her four years here, White became the backbone of a field hockey squad, an ice hockey squad and a lacrosse squad that each became a top-notch team. To realize how many goals--and for that matter, how many points--White has accumulated as a four-year starter on both the field hockey and lacrosse squads and as a three-year starter on the ice hockey team is almost shattering.

"Jennifer even scored from the left wing position," Field Hockey Coach Edie Mabrey says. "And that's the hardest position on the field to score from."

Her uncontested domination on the playing fields finally gained her some long overdue respect this year, when she was named to the All-Ivy lacrosse team.

The four-year fairytale is over, and while many Harvard opponents take pleasure in that fact, as Mabrey says, "Harvard may never be the same again."