W. Soccer Stops Skid, Tops Hartford

The breaks finally went the right way for the No. 20 Harvard women’s soccer team yesterday at Ohiri Field as a controversial goal from junior forward Beth Totman in the 32nd minute lifted the Crimson to victory over Hartford. The Hawks bench blamed the goal on a blown offsides call, but either way, the final score was 1-0 Harvard (9-4, 3-2 Ivy) and the Crimson’s three-game losing streak is over.

Following the goal, foul calls started going the way of the Hawks (13-4). By the end of the game, Hartford had earned 17 free kicks to Harvard’s six and outshot the Crimson 23-8, but goalkeeper Cheryl Gunther and the Harvard defense held strong and emerged victorious.

“We just needed a result,” said Harvard Coach Tim Wheaton. “We just wanted to get back on the winning track, and we did that. It wasn’t necessarily pretty all the time. It wasn’t necessarily our best game. But we found a way to win, and we got a great goal when we needed it.”

The Hartford confusion began as the ball was passed past the final defender about 20 yards outside the box. Junior forward Joey Yenne was offsides on the play, the flag went up, and nearly everyone on the field stopped playing even though there was no whistle. As has often been the case, it was the heads-up play of sophomore midfielder Katie Westfall that produced the game-winning goal.

“I saw Joey coming back from the offsides position, and I was definitely onsides, so I think it was actually a mature call by the ref not to call it,” Westfall said.

Westfall ran through, gathered the loose ball and set up a two-on-one with Totman. Westfall drew out the Hartford goalkeeper and crossed to Totman from a few yards out for the easy finish.

The instant the goal was scored, the Hartford players on the field erupted in protest and the Hawks’ bench exploded in frustration.

“The offside rule is that a player who’s in an offside position who doesn’t play the ball is not offsides, so they stopped, and we didn’t, and we kept going and knocked it home,” Wheaton said. “I’m happy to grab it. I’ll take it We haven’t been getting a lot of breaks, so it’s nice to get one today.”

After the goal, the game became more physical, and as Hartford pressed, Harvard surrendered one free kick after another. Of the 17 Hawk free kicks, the vast majority were in the Crimson end.

“That was a little frustrating,” Wheaton said. “We need to be a little more composed and not pick up those kind of fouls.”

And the Hawks had the talent to turn any kind of free kick into a scoring opportunity.

“They were very good at direct kicks,” Gunther said. “They had the height, they had the perfect kick. It was a tough game.”

Gunther, who finished with 11 saves, flawlessly stopped shots all afternoon. She handled everything that came near her cleanly, whether it was a crisp, high shot from the 18, a chaotic, bouncing ball from a few yards out, or one of several, quick redirections off a long free kick.

Gunther rarely was forced to make a save of the spectacular, crowd-pleasing variety, but that was a consequence of how well she positioned herself all afternoon. She came out of the net when she needed to, and she played physical whenever anyone challenged her.

“We defended with a lot of heart and character,” Wheaton said. “Sometimes winning games isn’t all about skill and tactics and technique. Sometimes it’s just about gritting it out and having character. And I think we did that today.”

On one of Hartford’s best scoring chances midway through the second half, Gunther stopped an initial shot from Hawk forward Jeanette Akerlund—Hartford’s leading scorer—but the ball continued rolling towards the net and freshman Alisha Moran, who had packed the net, cleared it from the goal line. But the Hawks came right back and Gunther was forced to challenge another player for a loose ball in front.

As happened on at least three occasions, Gunther won the ball and collided violently with the Hawk player. While Gunther emerged nearly unscathed, the Hawk player started rolling on the ground in pain.

“I got hit a few times, but then they would get hurt,” Gunther said. “I would get totally hit and they’d be squirming on the ground. I don’t know what happened.”

“I thought they were a little weak,” she added. “Every time they got hit they fell down for five minutes.”

Despite some trying moments, the Crimson defense persevered. Harvard’s second wave of forwards—consisting of Moran, freshman Emily Colvin and sophomore Alisa Sato—played a larger role than usual yesterday as they kept the ball in the Hawk end in the game’s final 15 minutes more regularly than the starters had.

The hustle of Colvin and Moran even managed to win Harvard a first-half corner kick, which caused a moment of confusion because junior Orly Ripmaster—the typical right-side setter—was out of the game.

With the forwards and midfielders keeping the ball in Hartford’s end for most of the final minutes, there was no final desperation run from the Hawks.

“We packed the box a little bit, and I was nervous,” Gunther said. “But once we got to seven minutes I was like, ‘we got this.’ The defense did awesome. I’m so proud.”

The victory was huge for Harvard on several levels. First, it was a win over a Hartford team that had been nationally-ranked for most of the season before falling to Boston University last week. The Hawks were fifth in the region entering the game while Harvard was tied for second in the region with Dartmouth.

Because the Big Green lost at home to regional No .1 Connecticut on Monday, the win solidifies the Crimson’s hold on the regional No. 2 spot—which should be enough to earn hosting privileges for the first two rounds of NCAAs.

The fact that Dartmouth beat Harvard head-to-head and might finish with a better Ivy record will be irrelevant in terms of rankings and NCAA seedings, provided that the Crimson can win its last two Ivy games against Penn and Columbia. At this point in the season, Harvard has maintained superior results over Dartmouth against a more difficult schedule.

But more importantly, the victory gets the Crimson back in the win column and ends any parallel to last season’s five-game losing streak that closed out the regular season.

“We sort of just had to get out of the kink we were having, and I’ll take it however we can. I’m not picky,” Gunther said. “It was a really tough game, and we did well defensively, but not that great offensively, but we got a goal and we won, and that’s all that matters.”