Cornell Sends W. Lax to Its Sixth Ivy Defeat

The Harvard women’s lacrosse team outscored the Big Red, 8-2, through the opening and closing 16 minutes of its Saturday afternoon meeting at No. 12 Cornell.

But during the time in between, the Crimson (6-8, 1-6 Ivy) was kept off the scoreboard, while Cornell (10-3, 5-2) buried Harvard with 10 consecutive goals.

The 12-8 defeat made this year’s Crimson team the first in school history to lose six Ivy games.

“It’s really frustrating to look at the scores we’ve had this season and our place in the standings,” said co-captain Megan Austin. “I think we’re a lot better than that shows. I know for a fact that all of the teams we’ve played this season have had to take us seriously.”

Harvard led 2-1 through a low-scoring, back-and-forth opening stretch of the first half. Senior midfielder Courtney Leimkuhler and senior attacker Lauren Corkery scored the first two Harvard goals. Junior midfielder Lizzy Frisbie, who led all scorers with three goals and two assists on the day, assisted on both goals.

But then Cornell took complete control of the game. The Big Red reeled off seven consecutive points before the end of the first half, and three more early in the second half, which left the Crimson facing an 11-2 deficit.

“When we came out there, we were playing a solid game, but we had lapses,” Austin said. “We were having a lot of trouble once we got into the offensive end, throwing bad passes and rushing the shot. We weren’t settled in the attack. We weren’t finding the open person.”

Cornell’s Sarah Averson and Jaimee Reynolds did most of the damage for the Big Red, as each netted a hat trick. Although Cornell legitimately dominated the medial stretch of the game, the Big Red did benefit from a few lucky bounces, including a free position goal that deflected off of a player’s shoulder.

Harvard dominated the game’s closing minutes, outscoring the Big Red, 6-1, over the final stretch. Frisbie did most of the damage, scoring three consecutive goals—two on free-position shots, and one on an assist from Corkery. Junior midfielder Heather Gotha scored the sixth and seventh Harvard goals, while freshman Ashley Harmeling found the net, on assist from junior defender Erin Kutner, for the Crimson’s final score with 3:41 left in the game.

“We picked things up,” Austin said. “Everyone was hustling and working hard. If we had played like that the whole game, there’s no doubt we would have beaten Cornell.”

When Cornell was up 12-4 with 10 minutes left, the Big Red pulled starting goalie Carrie Giancola and gave freshman Ashley Charron some time in net. Charron lasted just over six minutes after giving up four goals on five Crimson shots.

Sophomore Nora Guyer minded the net all afternoon for the Crimson. She made seven saves in a losing effort.

Surprisingly, neither co-captain Alli Harper nor sophomore midfielder Katie Shaughnessy scored a point for the Crimson. The two had scored in every game this season before Saturday’s contest. Harper is second in the Ivies in overall scoring with 37 goals and 12 assists on the year.

The loss concluded a disappointing Ivy season for the Crimson. The Ivy League was as tough as it ever had been this season, with four teams presently among the top 13 in the country. Harvard was competitive with all the top-ranked opposition it faced, most notably a last-second 10-9 defeat to No. 13 Yale. The Crimson challenged eventual Ivy co-champions, No. 5 Princeton and No. 6 Dartmouth, during their meetings this season. Against the Big Green, the Crimson did not trail until the final minute of the first half. Harvard’s only Ivy win was against Columbia, a team that has never won an Ivy game in school history.

The Crimson will have to wait till next year to get another shot at its league rivals. Harvard will face a tall order having to do it without Corkery and Harper, who have been the team’s leading scorers each of the past two seasons.

“Lauren and Alli will be missed,” Austin said. “But we do have a lot of strong people coming back. I think we’re building. Having a full-time assistant coach this year definitely helped. We have a strong junior class. It’ll be up to them to lead and put it all together, especially on the attack.”

Harvard does have one final non-conference game next Sunday against No. 1 Maryland, the six-time defending national champion in women’s lacrosse. Harvard defeated Maryland, 8-7, in the grand finale of its 1990 national championship season. The two programs have diverged since then, but they continue to meet every year.

“Most of all, we want to go out and have fun and play with them,” Austin said. “It’s amazing to still have the opportunity to play them and keep them on our schedule, because they’re a great team.”

Maryland beat the Crimson, 21-8, last season, and by the score of 21-3 the year before that. The Crimson expects a more respectable result this time around, seeing as Harvard kept close with Princeton in a 14-9 defeat this season, and the Terrapins beat Princeton by just one goal last week.

The game will be played at Jordan Field on Sunday at 1 p.m. The Crimson should be the better-rested team, as Maryland faces a tough test at Dartmouth on Friday night. Harvard is the last team that the Terrapins will face before they begin their run for a seventh consecutive NCAA title.