Doctor, Doctor: Crimson Must Do Better

STORRS, Conn.—Harvard had been getting closer and closer to beating Connecticut in recent years. Two years ago when UConn was ranked No. 1 in the country, the Crimson played the Huskies to a one-goal game, and one year ago, the Harvard-UConn contest was tied at one up until the final five minutes.

The No. 14 UConn team the Crimson faced yesterday was also a bit downgraded from last year. The Huskies graduated two All-Americans and returned just one senior. Granted, the Crimson lost its own All-American in co-captain Maisa Badawy ’01, fellow co-captain Liz Sarles ’01 and its leading goal-scorer in Kate Nagle ’01. But considering how Harvard out-seniored UConn by six-to-one, it seemed as if there ever was a chance for Harvard to win at Storrs, where the Huskies are 69-6 all-time, this was it.

That makes yesterday’s 4-1 defeat all the more difficult to take.

In the past few weeks, little has gone right for the Crimson, which was the unofficial 13th seed of last season’s NCAA tournament.

Sophomore Kate McDavitt and captain Jane Park, among the team’s top returning scoring threats, have yet to play this year. A horrific shutout at the hands of New Hampshire, marked by a nightmarish string of missed open nets and wasted many-on-ones, was followed by a 11-day layoff due to last week’s tragedies in New York.

“Last week was tough for everyone,” said Harvard Coach Sue Caples. “Everyone’s got to try to get their momentum back.”

Harvard, having played only two games thus far when it should have played four, simply hasn’t been battle-tested enough to win these kind of games.

“When we play as a team, when we all step it up, and when we overlap in the midfield, we can all be a great team,” said sophomore forward Mina Pell, who has scored three of Harvard’s four goal this year. “We weren’t doing that today.”

The Crimson had better get itself together soon. Harvard’s Ivy opener against Brown is this weekend. One week later, the Crimson is set to play at No. 4 Michigan and No. 6 Michigan St.

Following its best campaign in nine years last season, the Harvard field hockey team chose to increase the difficulty of its schedule. No more Rhode Island (an 8-12 team last year) or California (one of the few schools that actually plays out West) on tap.

Harvard had better improve, or else the Crimson will be traveling 700 miles to the Great Lakes to get humbled by duel 5-0 scores.

But that can’t happen. The players won’t let it happen. The incentive to improve is just too strong.

This is, after all, a Harvard team that has three players, and two seniors, from Ann Arbor. For everyone, this will be a much anticipated weekend and a golden chance to turn the season around.

There’s no reason to get too worked up about yesterday’s defeat. It was a non-conference game. It was a Wednesday afternoon game following a several-day layoff. Harvard’s 1-2 start thus far, beating Vermont, and losing to UConn and New Hampshire, is on par with last season. Beating UConn was not the primary goal of the Crimson’s season.

Today’s sports page features an unfortunate photograph of UConn’s third goal. Rest assured that nobody in Crimson wants to see another moment like that again.

“We’ll take responsibility for what happened out there,” Caples said. “We will learn from this experience.”