Booters Face UMass in NCAAs, Looking For a Final Four Ticket

Thomas Wolfe may have said that "you can't go home again," but Tracee Whitley is out to prove him wrong.

Only one victory stands between Whitley and a trip home to North Carolina. If the Harvard women's soccer team can defeat the University of Massachusetts in today's NCAA quarterfinal, goalie Whitley and her teammates will be heading south to Chapel Hill and the Final Four.

Which would be the squad's first-ever competition in NCAA Final Four play.

The fifth-ranked Crimson (14-2-1) reached this stage of the tournament by knocking off the 12th-ranked University of Vermont in last Saturday's first round action. Fourth-ranked UMass (13-2-2) advanced by edging out Boston College, 3-2, in overtime.

Whitley said that she was mainly concentrating on today's contest, but admitted that "in the back of my mind is the possibility of going home and playing down there."

The freshman hails from Raleigh, N.C., just 45 minutes from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a school that heavily recruited her to play soccer.

But before Whitley can start planning an early Thanksgiving trip home, the Crimson must prove that last month's victory over the Minutemen was no fluke.

On October 22, UMass pummeled Harvard's goal with 37 shots, but it was the Cantabs' Ann Baker who notched the only shot that counted, hoisting Harvard to a 1-0 victory--Bob Scalise's 100th triumph as coach.

Despite the 37 shots on goal, however, the Minutemen's offense might not be as potent as the statistics indicated. "We forced them to take shots they might not have wanted to take," Scalise said.

Harvard midfielder Wendy Zeeben added, "A lot of their shots were from 25 to 30 yards out. If we can play defense like we did last time we should be fine."

But the UMass offense might be more difficult to contain this time around. The Minutemen's top five offensive players have contributed 39 goals this season, while the entire Crimson squad has connected only 35 times.

Neither team has a clear advantage going into today's match-up, and Harvard recognizes that the psychological advantage of the early season victory is not enough to fend off a hungry UMass squad seeking revenge.

Scalise, however, has instituted a rigorous training program which he hopes will draft a less-conditioned team's attack.

"We've worked really hard, and everyone is in good shape. And that's a definite edge over any team," Zeeben said.

And although UMass clings to its home field advantage, Harvard realizes that it has already won, at Amberst.

"We beat UMass once and we can do it again," Crimson sweeper Inga Larson said. "When our team really clicks on the game I don't think there's anyone who can beat us."

As far as the rankings are concerned, Minuteman Coach Kalekeni Banda said "you can take them and throw them out the window--it's the rankings you make for yourself that are important."

Massachusetts has made itself into one of the best teams in the nation on the strength of some very young talent--eight Minutemen starters are freshmen.

"They've been in this kind of pressure before," Banda said." Just making this team and making a name for themselves on this team was the main challenge. We're all nervous but it's a good nervousness."

Scalise acknowledged the pressure as well, but stressed that "we're not asking the team to do anything that it's not capable of doing."

According to Zeeben, "the big difference is you know you have to win this game to keep playing--it's one game."

One game, on which the future of the 1984 season hangs.

A loss today would dash the hopes of a Harvard team that this year, for the first time, believes that it is capable of going all the way, it would also bring to an abrupt half the careers of five Harvard seniors.

But a win would enable the crimson to travel to its first-ever NCAA Final Four tournament to vie for a national championship.

And the latter option rounds awfully good to Tracee Whitley.

THE NOTEBOOK: Gametime today is 1:00 p.m. on Boyden Field. The prospective opponent for next weekend's semifinal match is the winner of Brown Uconn quarterfinal.