Field Hockey Falls Into Fourth Place

Sometimes being talented is the easy part.

As the Harvard field hockey team learned this season, actually translating that ability into wins is the real challenge.

After what appeared to be a ground-breaking season in 1996, in which it went 5-1 in the Ivy League and reached the ECAC finals, Harvard (7-10, 3-4 Ivy) endured a disappointing 1997 season, tying for fourth in the league and seldom showing the brilliance of which it was potentially capable.

Record: 7-10, 3-4 Ivy

Coach: Sue Caples

Highlights: Judy Collins named unanimous First-Team All-Ivy

Seniors: Amy DiMarzio, Beck Stringer

"There was a great amount of talent on this team," said co-captain Amy DiMarzio. "I expected us to do really well this season. But regardless [of losing], I still had a good time."

The Crimson did defeat several ranked opponents, including No. 18 Boston University, No. 20 Penn, No. 17 Boston College and No. 10 Providence.

The Providence win, a 2-1 victory on Oct. 13, seemed ironically to act as a turning point in the season--for the worse. The Crimson rebounded from a 1-0 deficit with two goals by junior Judy Collins to pull off the upset.

Collins, a unanimous First-Team All-Ivy pick for the second straight year, missed the beginning of the season because she was traveling with the U.S. Junior Cup team in South Korea. The two-goal performance was a possible sign that the team's scoring leader was on the verge of tearing up the league.

The victory was the team's third over a four-game stretch and put it at .500 with seven games to go.

"This is what we're capable of," said Coach Sue Caples after the Providence win.

But Harvard went on to drop five of its remaining seven games to stumble past the finish line. It is easy to chalk it up to fate and say that things would have been different if the ball had bounced differently--Harvard played six overtime contests and posted just a 2-4 record in those games--but good teams somehow always manage to have fate on their side.

The team's sub-.500 record made it ineligible for the ECAC Tournament, and a season that started with tremendous promise ended in mediocrity.

"Losing didn't become such a weight on the team that playing was a burden," Stringer said. "This team had a special team dynamic, and despite our record, it was still fun."

Several individual performances stand out. In addition to Collins' First-Team selection, junior midfielder Tara LaSovage and sophomore goalie Anya Cowan won Second-Team All-Ivy accolades.

Cowan showed no signs of a sophomore slump after her magnificent rookie campaign, as she posted the second-best goals-against-average in the Ivies (1.17) and led the league in save percentage in league games (.875).

Several newcomers made important contributions, including freshman Kathryn Nagle, junior Caroline Johnston--who finished second on the team in scoring--and freshman Elizabeth Sarles, who along with co-captain Beck Stringer helped anchor a defense that had to cope with the loss of several graduates, including star sweeper Daphne Clark '97.

Harvard can expect to see many changes in the coming year, as it prepares to leave Cumnock Field for a new artificial turf field, which began construction in March. The field will not be ready for the start of the 1998 season, but it will take some time to prepare for so radical a change in playing surface.

"[Turf] will definitely make us more competitive," said Assistant Coach Gretchen Scheuermann. "The game is much faster, more fluid and you have better control."

Most field hockey programs have made the move to turf already, and Harvard did not win a game on turf until it beat Brown, 3-1, on the last day of the season. It was just the team's second road win.

Harvard graduates only two players, Stringer and DiMarzio, and most of the returning players have seen both good and bad seasons. With Collins and Cowan both back to lead a team with one more year of experience under its belt, there is reason to believe that next season the ball actually could bounce Harvard's way.

"This season was definitely disappointing," Collins said. "Still, it shows us what we need to do for next year. If we work hard, we will have a good team. It's just a matter of capitalizing."