Laxwomen Stomp Penn, 7-2

There is a familiar axiom of sports competition that goes something like this: the lesser teams tend to get pumped up to play the better teams. A more obscure corollary to this axiom states that the better teams, in turn, don't always have the the easiest time beating the lesser teams.

Both of these competitive `rules' came into effect for the Harvard women's lacrosse team this past weekend as it fought off a much-improved University of Pennsylvania team on Saturday to post a 7-2 win in Philadelphia. The victory was the laxers' second of the season in as many attempts, following its 24-4 pasting of Boston College last Wednesday. However, the Penn game was closer than the score would indicate.

Flying into Philadelphia on Saturday morning, the Crimson was a bit fatigued for the afternoon contest. Add to that the good shape of the Penn players thanks to a recent training excursion to Florida during spring break, and the Crimson had itself a more competitive battle.

"Penn is a much improved, more seasoned team year," head coach Carole Kleinfelder said. "They were clearly in better shape."

Good fitness and more rest translated into a strong attack for Penn, and the Crimson had its hands full early. But the Laxers met Penn's offensive challenge by holding their ground defensively and black-checking effectively.

"It took some time for us to get settled, but we played a great defensive game," senior co-captain Francie Walton said.

Though Harvard focused well throughout the game on its defensive effort, it couldn't quite carry is solid play to the offensive end of the field. The Crimson consistently had problems making the transition from defense to offense, lacking composure and seeming hesitant at times on its attack. And many of the shots that Harvard did create were missed, as the Laxers scored on only 7 of 28 attempts.

"We definitely had trouble with our transition and our settled offensive game, and we missed a lot of shots," Walton said.

Despite these transitional and offensive problems, the Crimson was able to grind this one out on the strength of several strong field efforts and stingy goaltending.

Junior attacker Debbie Edgar scored twice, while junior midfielder Sarah Winters tallied a goal and an assist. To typify Harvard's tough defensive effort, freshman goalie Kate Schutt turned away eight of ten shots on goal.

Next, the Laxers turn their attention to regional foe University of Massachusetts, who will they will play today at 3 p.m. at Ohiri Field. After dropping its program after the 1990 season, UMass is enjoying its first year back with a full program and coach as a result of gender equity legislation.

At the time that the UMass women's team was dropped, it was a very strong program. But that was then, and this is now.

"We don't expect [UMass] to be strong this year, but it will be interesting to see how its program will develop in the future," Kleinfelder said.

The Crimson will likely use this game against UMass to work out the kinks it felt in the Penn game, while preparing itself for this Saturday's showdown against perennial rival, Princeton.

"We're going to try to use UMass as a tune-up for us to work on our transition and our settled offensive attack," Walton said.

In studying the principles that endeavor to explain athletics, there is a third axiom which must not be forgotten: after suffering setbacks against the lesser teams, the better teams inevitably respond in triumph even more vigorously then before... that's what makes them better.