Women's Lax Opens Season With Throttling of B.C.

NEWTON, Mass.--This game was over before it was scheduled.

It is safe to say that the Boston College women's lacrosse team didn't have a chance when it took on Harvard last night at Alumni Stadium. The Crimson has earned a spot to the NCAA Tournament for each of the past seven seasons while the Eagles perennially struggle to win more than they lose.

Nothing about Harvard's 12-2 victory was much of a surprise. The Crimson scored its first goal quickly (at the 28:41 mark) and proceeded to slowly but surely put the game away, garnering a 8-0 lead at half-time.

Junior attacker Erin Cleary, sophomore midfielder Lindsay Davison and senior midfielder Sarah Winters all garnered two goals and an assist. Co-captain Megan Colligan (defense) added a goal and two dishes.

The game wasn't as much of a slaughter as meetings between these two teams have been (see Harvard's 24-4 victory last season). Yes, B.C. is slowly getting better, and yes, Harvard didn't play perfectly.

But Lord, it sure wasn't close.

"It was a good game," Colligan said. "We could have pushed it a bit harder, but I think that 12-2 is good enough."

The first half was good example of this. When the Crimson was playing at its peak, the game was a laughter.

B.C. didn't gain possession of the ball until after Harvard scored its first goal, a penalty shot by Cleary. So when the Eagles finally got it, they reverted to a slow-down offense--four corners for you basketball nuts--seemingly to make up for lost time.

The only good that it did was to keep the ball out of Harvard's hands, which makes sense. For when the Crimson got the ball back it tallied again, this time at the 19:27 mark.

Colligan, holding the ball to the left of the Eagle goal, whipped a past to fellow co-captain Genevieve Chelius (defense), who was streaking up the middle. This gave Chelius an open shot, something which the B.C. coaches had surely said was a no-no.

Soon after, sophomore midfielder Liz Schoyer and Davison both tallied on pretty point-blank shots, respectively.

It was extremely obvious that this was a deficit that B.C. would not recover from. The Eagles couldn't even force sophomore goalie Kate Schutt to make any saves in the first period, as the Crimson clamped down hard on defense.

"Our defense looks pretty strong," Chelius said. "[B.C.] is a good team, but they didn't take us on one-on-one as much as they could have."

The scary thing is, however, Harvard could have played better--and knows it.

"It was a good start," Harvard coach Carole Kleinfelder said. "[But] I wish that we had shown a little more patience on offense."

The Crimson's decisions weren't perfect, and the passing got progressively worse as the game went on, cutting off some fast break opportunities.

As a result, the second half was a bit uglier than the first for Harvard. To begin, B.C. actually scored--horror of horrors--on a goal by Kris Kelleher at the 28:33 mark.

To its credit, the Crimson retaliated less than a minute later, with a low shot off the stick of Winters. But the offense never did click quite as well as it did early on, partially due to the fact that many of the starters came out for extended periods of time as the blowout was set in stone.

"The transition wasn't all that good," Kleinfelder said. "I thought that we could have done better on the fast break."

However, none of these critiques should mask the fact that Harvard played more than well enough to win yesterday. For a team that has national championship hopes, that is most assuredly a good sign.

Game Notes

Yesterday marked the first goals for two players, sophomore Chris Shortsleeve and freshman Alexis Maybank...freshman Holly Rogers injured her ankle two-thirds of the way through the first half and watched the rest of the game from the sidelines, her ankle wrapped in a large ice pack.

HARVARD, 12-2 at Alumni Stadium Harvard  8  4  --  12 B.C  0  2  --  2

G: Harvard--Winters (2), Cleary (2), Davision (2), Chelius, Schoyer, Colligan, Shortsleeve, Shumway, Maybank; B.C.--Kelleher, Taylor. A: Harvard--Colligan (2), Cleary, Davison, Winters; B.C.--Chave. S: Harvard--Schutt 3, Barghouti (8:00 second) 1; B.C--MacLeod 20.