Crimson Holds On For Tight Win

The Harvard women’s lacrosse team made sure its opponent never left the doghouse yesterday afternoon, taking down Connecticut, 14-12, in a non-league matchup. The Crimson (3-3, 0-1 Ivy) nearly blew a five-goal halftime lead, but in the end it did just enough to stave off a late charge by the winless Huskies (0-8).

“We came out strong, but we didn’t finish the way that we wanted to,” senior Kaitlin Martin said. “We want to be the team that puts them away in the beginning and doesn’t give them any chance to come back.”

Harvard’s top two scorers, Martin and sophomore Jess Halpern, once again led the attack with five goals apiece. Martin threw in two assists while Halpern had one, as four of their teammates also got on the scoreboard. Tri-captain Sara Flood and freshman standout Tyler Petropulous each contributed a score and an assist. Husky captain Whitney Michele led all scorers with eight points in the loss, tallying five goals and three helpers.

Coming off a disappointing performance Saturday in its Ivy opener, a 12-8 loss at Brown, Harvard was well aware that it needed to make a vast improvement, especially in the game’s first minutes.

“Against Brown, we started really slowly…We were down 7-1, and it took us a while to get into our rhythm and play our game,” Halpern said. “We started a lot better today…We had a lot of intensity right from the get go.”

Although Connecticut did find the net first, scoring 47 seconds into the game, this time it was Harvard that would jump out to an insurmountable lead. The top scorer in the Ivies, Halpern made a mockery of the Husky defense, garnering a trio of goals to give her team a 3-1 lead through eight minutes of action.

A couple of minutes later the hosts pulled back within one, but the Crimson strung together four straight points to solidify the advantage. Petropulous got the party started, sinking her eighth goal of the season on a pass from Martin, who then exploded for two scores of her own. Freshman Chelsey Bowman punctuated the run with her second collegiate goal, putting Harvard ahead, 7-2.

The Huskies twice cut the deficit to four, but Martin’s third and fourth goals made it 9-4 with six minutes to play in the half. Two and a half minutes later, freshman Katie Doherty and junior tri-captain Sara Flood scored 11 seconds apart to open up a seven-goal lead for the Crimson, which exhibited a stellar team effort.

“Freshmen Tyler Petropulous and Katie Doherty did a great job on the draws today, and that really allows the ball to stay on the offensive end,” Martin said. “People did a good job of finishing as well.”

Connecticut scored two goals in the final 1:37 of the half to cut the lead to 11-6. It was an unfavorable conclusion to a fine start by Harvard, which took 23 shots and had six turnovers to the Huskies’ 13 and 11, respectively, in the stanza.

The momentum seemed to have permanently shifted the Huskies’ way. Michele pounced on a free position opportunity a minute into the second frame, after which Halpern and Martin notched goals to send the lead back to a margin of six.

After another Michele score, Halpern’s free position shot found the back of the net, but the game’s final 19 minutes would be all Huskies, as the home team slowly crawled its way back from a 14-8 disadvantage.

The four-goal run to close out the contest brought Connecticut within two, but neither team was able to get on the board following Michele’s goal with 3:39 to play. Freshman goaltender Kerry Clark came up big as Crimson managed to keep its slim lead from dwindling even further—a less than ideal finish that left Harvard with a bittersweet victory.

“We didn’t have enough intensity, and [we] played down to the level of our opponent,” Martin said.

The Crimson cannot afford do the same at 1 p.m. Saturday, when it takes on nationally-ranked crosstown rival Boston University at Nickerson Field.

—Staff writer Dennis J. Zheng can be reached at dzheng12@college.harvard.edu.