Field Hockey Posts First Six-Win Ivy Season Ever, Awaits NCAA Decision

With an aggressive show of crisp passing and quick stick-work straight from the opening whistle on Saturday, the No. 16 Harvard field hockey team sent the message that it would not be beaten with a potential NCAA Tournament berth on the line.

It took just 140 seconds for freshman forward Kate McDavitt to put the Crimson ahead, and Harvard (12-5, 6-1 Ivy) never looked back in a 4-0 triumph over Columbia (11-6, 3-4 Ivy).

"I think we're really happy with the way we finished," senior forward Kate Nagle said. "It was huge, our last Ivy game."

In the opening minutes, Harvard controlled the ball into the Columbia zone and earned a quick penalty corner. McDavitt drove in the rebound off the initial shot to give Harvard a 1-0 lead.

The Crimson continued to out-maneuver and out-pass the Lions while holding on to its lead, before finally striking again in the 31st minute.

On Harvard's fifth penalty corner of the day, the Crimson employed a rarely-used option that involved two quick passes. From the top of the circle, co-captain Liz Sarles passed left to sophomore back Katie Scott, who again passed left to junior back Katie Turck. Turck's shot deflected the opposite way to the right side, where junior forward Jane Park pushed a slow roller through traffic that found its way into the left corner of the net.

Freshman forward Mina Pell, who had come agonizingly close to scoring against Dartmouth and Yale in earlier action, had much better luck against the Lions.

With two minutes remaining in the half, Pell controlled a pass from Nagle and found the left corner of the net wide open a few yards away. Lion keeper Molly Starsia-Lasagna, who had been out to the right, tried to rush back, but Pell's shot narrowly beat her to the goal line.

In the second half, Harvard continued to control the game, although Columbia had some better scoring chances. Ten minutes into the half, the Lions actually got the ball past freshman keeper Katie Zacarian, but junior back Sarah Luskin stopped the ball short of the goal line, and cleared it far out of the circle.

Then with thirteen minutes left, Ivy overall scoring leader Nikki Campbell--barely noticeable throughout the day--finally got a break in all alone on Zacarian from a few yards out to the left. But Zacarian calmly stood her ground and watched Campbell helplessly run into her and lose control of the ball.

Pell and McDavitt teamed up to score one of the prettiest goals of the season with just under five minutes remaining. Facing pressure at midfield on a restart near the right sideline, McDavitt fired the ball in between the last line of defenders to Pell, who was charging downfield. Starsia-Lasagna came out of the net to stop Pell, but the freshman maneuvered around the Lion keeper and placed the ball cleanly into the net for her second goal of the game and the season.

"I was really, really excited [to finally score]," Pell said. "I had a great set up on both of them. Kate, in the second half, threaded a great restart in between those two defensemen."

The freshmen were huge for the Crimson on the day, as Pell and McDavitt accounted for three goals and an assist, while Zacarian earned her seventh shutout of the season.

"[The freshman] make me work hard every day," co-captain Maisa Badawy said. "They make all of us better players. Now, look at them they're stepping up. I love our team."

The victory was especially sweet for the seniors Nagle, Sarles, and Badawy in what might have been their final game at Jordan Field. They led Harvard to its first six-win Ivy season in school history.

"It's great because we're seniors and it's the best year we've had," Badawy said. "And we're three of us, and we're tight."

The season would have an even sweeter conclusion if the NCAA Selection Committee decides to award Harvard an at-large bid tomorrow night.

"We have a pretty good chance," Badawy said. "We played the best we can. Someone just has to smile upon us."

Selection Preview

The NCAA Selection Committee faces a tough decision when it picks the last few at-large teams for the tournament--not because there are too many well-qualified teams. None of the five or six bubble teams competing for the final spots have done anything to particularly distinguish themselves from one another.

"Boston University and New Hampshire may came back to haunt us," Harvard Coach Sue Caples said. "But there are other teams in similar positions that have not done absolutely everything to make them have to put you in the tournament."

The loss to B.U. last Sunday was Harvard's only multi-goal loss of the year outside of Princeton. The selection committee will hopefully recognize that the schedule placed the Crimson at a terrible disadvantage, forcing the team to play road games on consecutive afternoons during the most horrific weather of the season. B.U. had been out of action since the previous Wednesday.

"A little difference the weather makes," Caples said. "It was difficult to have three games that week, [two that weekend]. We're very fit, but we had to battle the elements and just try to stay warm. [B.U.] was better rested."

Of the tournament field of 16, six spots will go to league champions, while two spots will go to winners of play-in games between champions from four other conferences. Those games, to be contested on Tuesday, will be Rider at No. 14 B.U and Stanford at Holy Cross.

Luckily for Harvard, not one upstart, unranked team succeeded in winning a major conference tournament this year.

The ACC, the nation's best conference from top-to-bottom, does not have an automatic bid, but its four teams with winning records are locks to make the tourney. The Big Ten runner-up, whether it be Michigan or Penn State, is also an apparent lock.

That leaves three spots.

Judging by the latest National Field Hockey Coaches Association (NFHCA) poll, Harvard's top competitors for the remaining berths are No. 12 William & Mary (12-7), No. 13 James Madison (12-9), and No. 15 Ohio State (12-8). Harvard could still hold down the sixteenth ranking in the country, yet miss out on the tournament because of the automatic berth given to the unranked Stanford-Holy Cross winner.

Although the three aforementioned competitors have been ranked ahead of Harvard all year, none of them have done much to distinguish themselves from the Crimson. Each has it share of wins over marginal top-20 teams, but no wins over top-10 teams.

The NCAA Selection Committee will try to rank teams more objectively than the seemingly-arbitrary NFHCA poll. In the off-season, the committee approved the use of a ratings-percentage index as part of the selection criteria for the first time. Head-to-head contests and records versus common opponents should also be major factors under consideration.

The bubble teams might still be so close that a purely subjective decision will be necessary in the end.

The fun begins at 8 p.m. tomorrow night. The selection show will be broadcast live via the Internet, through www.ncaachampionships.com.