W. Soccer Drops Pair to Ranked Foes

Harvard women’s soccer team came in to this weekend’s Husky/Nike Invitational tournament to improve upon its close loss to then-No. 6 Penn State. But the Crimson never held a lead in its second and third straight defeats against ranked opposition.

No. 25 Harvard lost its first game 3-1 to No. 18 Washington and its second contest 2-1 against No. 6 Portland.

The Huskies beat the Crimson in the first game of the tournament on Friday. Washington took a 2-0 lead just 14 minutes into the game.

Harvard’s lone goal came in the 28th minute off of an assist from Third Team All-American junior Katie Westfall on a corner kick. Sophomore Liza Barber booted the ball into the back of the goal after a short scramble in front of the net.

“It was one of those [goals] that you know you should always score,” Barber said.

Washington iced the game with a goal in the 63rd minute, to cap off the scoring. The Huskies provided a superior amount of firepower, outshooting the Crimson 17-4 in the second half alone.

Harvard dropped its second game of the tournament to Portland, who has earned a berth in the NCAA Semifinals in each of the past three years.

The first goal of the game came with just five minutes remaining in the first half. The Pilots scored again in the middle of the second half, but Harvard answered quickly, scoring its own goal within three minutes of Portland’s.

Westfall provided another assist in the 74th minute of the game. Senior Joey Yenne scored on a sharp-angled shot, beating both her defender and the goalie, after scooping up Westfall’s long through ball along the right side, a play practiced often by the Crimson.

Freshman Maile Tavepholjalern had more to say about Harvard’s late game dominance. After the match, she talked to one of her former club teammates who now plays for the Pilots. The friend noted that her team was silent on the bus and was visibly upset, even though it had just beat Harvard 2-1.

Yenne noticed a great difference between Washington’s and Portland’s styles of play. She observed that the Huskies were a much more physically dominating team, causing six yellow cards to be issued in a tightly-called game, while the Pilots provided superior speed that the Crimson had a difficult time matching.

The two losses added to the Crimson’s worries, having now dropped three straight. The first loss of its losing streak came against Penn State, a game in which it went into the half with a 1-0 lead, but lost the game 2-1. But despite these three tough losses after a 2-0 start, the Crimson considers these games to be great preparation for the upcoming Ivy season.

Members of the team noticed dramatic improvement throughout both of the games.

“We definitely got better as the game wore on,” Barber said. “We didn’t come out with as much intensity as the other teams, but dominated the second halves of each. This is a really good experience, and now we know how to make better on-field adjustments.”

Harvard goes into this weekend’s Ivy opener against Brown with high hopes. With its original preseason goal of beating three out of the five ranked opponents now impossible, the team has set its sights on winning the Ivy League championship.

The Bears (3-1-2, 0-0-1 Ivy) most recently tied Columbia, 2-2, in its Ivy opening match this past Saturday. But despite this early season success, Brown has finished in last place in the Ivy League two of the past three years.

In the rest of the Husky/Nike Invitational, Washington won its own tournament for the first time in six years, beating UC Irvine 3-0. Portland also went undefeated, beating UC Irvine 2-0. But the Huskies had a superior goal differential, out scoring the opposition 6-1, while Portland only had a 4-1 goal differential. Portland had previously won four consecutive Husky/Nike Invitationals, from 1997-2000.