Soccer: Deep in Heart of Texas

The Harvard women's soccer team can't seem to reach its ceiling.

Last weekend at the University of Texas, the Crimson thumped the Longhorns, 3-0, and earned a 2-1 win over Cal Poly-San Luis Obisbo--teams that are no pushovers.

That leaves No. 12 Harvard still undefeated (11-0, 4-0 Ivy) and with the realization that it can wallop schools from all over the country, not just in the Northeast.

That was the whole point of the trip, anyway. Despite being ranked for much of last season and winning the Ivy League title, Harvard was not invited to the NCAA Tournament in 1995, and its entire 1996 schedule seems to be geared to rectify that.

Hartford, usually a strong team, was added to the non-conference slate--a move that didn't exactly work out, as the Crimson blasted the overmatched Hawks, 5-0.

The second big schedule change for Harvard was the trip to Texas, which would not only give the Crimson experience against other good teams, but it would also show the rest of the nation that Ivy teams can play good soccer. That was the idea, at least.

And what actually happened? The Crimson got more than it ever could have hoped. Harvard blitzed Texas with three first-half goals on Friday, knocking the previously No. 21 Longhorns out of the poll, and on Sunday it beat Cal Poly by a larger margin than the 2-1 score would suggest.

"It was a great weekend," junior Rebe Glass said. "Both Texas and Cal Poly have great reputations, so when we got to the field we realized that this was the big time, and we'd know if we were as good as people say we are."

For the briefest of moments, things looked very bad for the Crimson. Texas opened the game by going straight down the field and blasting a shot off the post.

But once Harvard got its collective psyche settled, everything changed. Less than three minutes after the 'Horns' post shot, freshman Julia Blain reined in a corner kick from junior Kristin Bowes and knocked it into the net for the game's first score.

After that goal, the Crimson didn't seem to want to let up. Sophomore Naomi Miller scored on a pass from junior Keren Gudeman a little over six minutes after Blain's tally. Near the end of the half, junior Emily Stauffer took a pass from Miller who beat two defenders to score.

The second story of the game was Harvard's defense. The Longhorns only had four shots in the game and forced the Crimson keepers to make only one save.

"It was a killer weekend for the defense," Glass said. "We were sort of throwing ourselves all over the place. It was really nice to see our defense coming together that well. It was also nice to see our offense flying around everywhere, too."

Compared to the Texas game, the Cal Poly contest was close and hard-fought. Of course, that's not saying much.

Unlike the Friday game, this one was scoreless in the first half; but like the Friday game, the offenses got started in a hurry.

Seventy-five seconds into the second half, Mustang Meghan Lehtonen knocked a short shot past freshman Anne Browning to give Cal Poly a 1-0 lead.

Harvard had been controlling most of the game up to that point but had little to show for it; nevertheless, the Crimson didn't really feel a sense of urgency.

"We controlled the Cal Poly game more than the score reflects," Stauffer said. "We missed a lot of opportunities and their goalie was good.... As soon as they scored that goal, we really turned it on. We were just passing the ball around, never letting them get possession."

Four minutes later, Harvard got its reward. Freshman Beth Zotter dribbled the ball past the Mustang goalie, who then essentially tackled Zotter; Stauffer took the resulting penalty kick and scored.

A mere eight minutes after that, freshman Ashley Berman took a pass from Stauffer and knocked the game-winner in the net.

"[Stauffer] headed a crosser to [Berman's] feet, she took on a couple of players, didn't look like she had much of an angle but she nailed it," Glass said.

The wins gave the Crimson momentum for its next game, for can get. Tomorrow, Harvard takes on No. 4 UConn at Ohiri Field, which will certainly be the team's toughest regular-season opponent in 1996.

The Crimson lost to the Huskies 3-0 last year, which was part of the reason Harvard didn't get an at-large NCAA bid.

"We feel really, really good, that we can play with them and that compete with them," Stauffer said. "We're psyched up for the challenge--in [past] games [against UConn] we came out with a little doubt, a little fear."