Field Hockey Set to Battle Vermont, URI at Cumnock

The Harvard field hockey team has a lot of questions going into its season-opening games this weekend. Now, it's looking for some answers.

Harvard will take on Vermont tomorrow at 1 p.m. and Rhode Island on Sunday at 2 p.m., and over these two home games the Crimson will find out what kind of a team it has.

And not just in the good vs. bad sense. Right now, Harvard's lineup has sort of a Mr. Potato Head feel, and no one's sure of who's the lips and who's the eyes. Put briefly, the Crimson has a lot of backs but hardly any midfielders, so some of those backs are going to have to move up.

So look for Harvard coach Sue Caples to stick either junior Eileen Horwath, senior Whitney Smith or junior Beck Stringer up in the midfield.

Co-captain Daphne Clark might also go to midfield as well--she had always been a midfielder until Caples converted her to a sweeper midway through last season--but don't count on it, because Clark did pretty well in her new position.

Another position still up in the air is goal. Sophomore Laura Stillman has just recovered from a hand injury, but freshman Andy Cowan has played throughout the preseason and thus has the first shot at the job.

The second thing the team wants to know is how good it is. Last season, Harvard beat Vermont 3-1 in a slightly ugly game and lost to Rhode Island 2-1 in a really ugly game.

Vermont ended up struggling to a 4-12 record, losing its final six games, while the Rams came in 11-9 and practically photocopied the Crimson's results against common opponents (both teams shut out Brown, were shut out by UConn, lost to Boston College, beat up on Providence and lost to Yale in overtime).

Harvard's 5-12 record, however, was nothing like URI's, and the meeting between the two teams showed well how their seasons would pan out. The Rams won their first round game of the Atlantic 10 Tournament, beating a good UMass team in overtime, 3-2, while the Crimson came in second-to-last in the Ivy League and only won one game on the road.

So what Harvard needs to start off this season is some good karma, and this weekend is real important for that. The team's next game after URI isn't until September 20, so what happens in the next few days will set the tone for an entire week's worth of practices.

Expect Harvard to press the offense, then. A main problem last season was the inability of the offense to score--the team once went four games without scoring a goal--so the Crimson wants to prove to itself that the offense can score, especially from the field.

Harvard had a pretty good penalty corner going last year, so if the Crimson were to tally three corner goals it would not be as satisfying as three "regular" goals from the field.