Poor Shooting Sinks Crimson

Brown scored near the end of the third quarter and withstood Harvard’s attack in the final quarter, winning, 3-2, at Blodgett pool in Cambridge and spoiling the Crimson’s home opener on Friday.

Senior two-meter Mollie Mehaffey, who is also a Crimson editor, scored both of Harvard’s goals. Aside from her efforts, Harvard (7-3, 2-2 CWPA Northern Division), could apply little pressure offensively against the Bears (4-9, 2-2).

“You play badly, you should lose,” Crimson coach Erik Farrar said. “We had a lot of chances on the offensive end. We just shot really, really poorly. That just won’t do. You can’t shoot, you are not going to win.”

With under a minute left, captain Arin Keyser’s shot bounced off the post. The team got the ball back with four seconds left, but couldn’t do anything.

Harvard shot only two of 19 for the game.

“Two for 19 is pretty bad,” Farrar said. “That is not enough shooting and the percentage is a disaster.”

While the Crimson’s offense was struggling, its defense excelled in limiting the Bears to only three goals.

Senior Lydia Gardner was excellent in net for Harvard, making eight saves.

“We played really good team defense,” Gardner said. “The only times we really messed up were the times when Brown capitalized and scored goals. None of their goals were legitimate. They could have all been preventable.”

Mehaffey scored early in the second quarter to give the Crimson the initial lead, but Brown answered shortly later, scoring twice before halftime to take a 2-0 lead into the break.

Mehaffey would tie the game midway through the third, but the Bears answered shortly after and held on to win.

“Brown took advantage of their chances,” Farrar said, adding, “If you had told me coming into this game that we were only going to give up three goals, I would have been over the moon about that. Three goals on defense is about as good as it is going to get against a team that can beat you.”

Harvard was zero for six on exclusion opportunities.

“We had very poor execution on the power play and poor shooting all the way around,” Farrar said.

Having played all its previous matches on the road, the Crimson welcomed the return to familiar settings.

“It’s always much more fun to play at home,” Farrar said. “We had been on the road a lot, with a lot of long road trips, so it’s nice to come back and have people’s friends come and watch us play and support us.”

The game was the first contest of the season between the two Ivy rivals. Last year, the teams met six times, resulting in four Harvard victories—including a 6-5 win at the Eastern Championships in the final game of the season.

The Crimson’s first chance for revenge against the Bears will likely come on April 8 in Providence.

“I think we are going to learn a lot from this game and get our heads together,” Gardner said. “And next time we play them, it will be a different story.”

Next week, Harvard travels to California, where it will battle La Verne before heading to Maryland for the ECAC Championships the following week.

—Staff writer Ted Kirby can be reached at tjkirby@fas.harvard.edu.