Underdog Field Hockey Maintains Confidence

When the Harvard field hockey team finally settled down after hearing its NCAA hosting assignment on Tuesday night, the first sentiment was expressed through an eager cry of, “Let’s practice right now!”

While such impulsive requests couldn’t feasibly be satisfied, the No. 14 Crimson has maintained focused practices in the past two days in preparation for the first NCAA game in Jordan Field’s four-year history at 11 a.m. tomorrow.

The Crimson (12-5) spent the afternoon perusing scouting reports and watching an inspirational video about an Olympic runner before letting loose on the field. Harvard hopes to use the extra day of practice to its full advantage against No. 3 Michigan State (21-2) in front of what may be the largest home crowd its players have ever experienced.

Word of the Northeast region’s first hosting assignment in years has spread far and wide. Players have confirmed the intended attendance of several local high school and college teams, as well as field hockey alumni and their supporters from years past. Fairweather Harvard students might actually attend the games as well.

“People have been really, really supportive,” said junior forward Kate McDavitt, one of Harvard’s recent First Team All-Ivy selections. “Random people that I’ve seen—I think have just read The Crimson—they’re all [saying], ‘Congratulations. I’m going to come. I’ll be there.’”

“I really hope everyone shows up,” she added.

With the home crowd, the familiar facilities and the extra day’s rest, the Crimson should be at a considerable advantage, though Harvard coach Sue Caples has warned the team to avoid easy distractions.

Recent evidence would suggest, however, that field hockey teams have benefited greatly from hosting the first two rounds. In last year’s tournament, all four host teams won their regionals, including two underdogs. Only one of those hosts, Michigan, had to play one of the four seeded teams in the first round. Despite that obstacle, the Wolverines ultimately won a surprising national championship.

Michigan St. brings the best win percentage in the nation and a school-record 11-game win streak into Jordan Field tomorrow. The Spartans have been among the nation’s most rapidly improving teams. Two years ago, Harvard narrowly beat out Michigan St. for an NCAA at-large berth. Last year, the Spartans emerged as an NCAA quarterfinalist. Now, Michigan St. is riding high after topping the defending national champs for its first Big Ten Championship.

The clearest reason for the Spartans’ renaissance is the addition of two Dutch players, sophomores Annebet Beerman and Judith van Haeringen. The former is the center forward who leads the Big Ten in scoring, while the latter is the center back who’s the No. 2 scorer on the team. The pair has been a force on the Spartan’s corner battery this year. In Harvard’s 2-0 loss at Michigan St. last year, both goals come off corners, and one was from Beerman.

The closeness of last year’s game in addition to the Crimson’s narrow 3-2 defeat to No. 2 Wake Forest make the team certain that it can compete tomorrow.

“They played a hard schedule and have a lot of good wins, but I definitely don’t think they’re going to kill us,” McDavitt said. “We have just as good a chance to beat them as they do to beat us.”

Caples argues that this team was just a few wins away from being a top 10 team itself. A 2-1 defeat No. 8 Northeastern in which Harvard led late in the second half was the closest call.

“We have great athletes, four years of experience of turf and a great schedule, so we’ve put ourselves in the position to be ready for this,” said Caples of Harvard’s national competitiveness.

Michigan St. has outscored opponents 85-17 this year, while Harvard’s net goal margin stands at 49-18. The disparity on offense is no matter, however, if the Crimson can keep up its own attack and control the ball.

“If they get us back on our heels, I feel that might end up hurting us,” McDavitt said. “We’ve got to make sure we stay pretty offensive and look to score instead of letting them be on their [attacking] end of the field.”

The contrast between Harvard’s success and failure was evident in its loss to Northeastern. As soon as the Crimson took the lead, it started playing defensively for the first time all evening, and a few breakdowns later, Northeastern was ahead.

If Harvard does fall behind, it must stick to its game and not force passes as it did upon falling behind in its 4-1 loss to Princeton.

“We started trying big balls up the field because we knew we needed to get goals,” said McDavitt of the Princeton loss. “We took ourselves out of our game by doing that, and it made it a lot easier for them to intercept our balls. We just need to learn to stay poised.”

In contrast, Harvard showed poise once it did fall behind against Northeastern and No. 15 Connecticut earlier this season. The Crimson twice came back from deficits against UConn before ultimately falling, and against Northeastern, Harvard won corners in the final minutes that nearly led to a game-tying goal.

Harvard, with its stingy defense all over the field, will hope that it won’t need to utilize poise when falling behind—only poise from the opening whistle. With the home crowd on hand, and the chance to avenge one of its unsettling losses against either UConn or Northeastern at 2 p.m. Sunday with a victory over Michigan St. tomorrow, the Crimson has every incentive to stay on course.

—Staff writer David R. De Remer can be reached at remer@fas.harvard.edu.