Late Surge by BC Downs Crimson

Harvard women’s lacrosse let a game versus Boston College yesterday slip away, allowing five unanswered goals to be scored in the last six minutes. The Crimson (1-4) met the No. 20 Eagles (8-1) on Newton Campus and fell, 15-10.

Those last minutes were crucial for Harvard. The visiting team couldn’t gain possession of the ball to score against BC.

“Our inability to win the draw near the end of the second half posed a big problem,” junior co-captain Melanie Baskind said.

“When it was 10-10, we gave the ball away, dropped passes, and lost possessions,” sophomore Jennifer VanderMeulen added.

The Eagles finished with an edge over Harvard in draw controls (15-12), winning nine in the second half. The Crimson maintained a lower total of turnovers, 14-12, and picked up more ground balls, 11-9.

The first half had even scoring, despite what the final tally may show.

Sophomore Danielle Tetreault, who led the team with a hat trick, scored two of her three goals in the first half. VanderMeulen also scored two, and junior Jess Halpern and freshman Chelsey Newman also tallied one each for the half. Harvard went up 3-1 in the first seven minutes.

BC rallied to score five out of the next six goals. At the end of the half, the Eagles had the 7-6 advantage against Harvard.

“We had a good lead going and BC fought back, and then BC had a good lead going and we fought back,” VanderMeulen said.

The Crimson was anticipating a battle to win the game against the ranked team.

“We knew going in that BC was a good team and it was going to be a hard fight,” VanderMeulen said, “and we did fight well.”

The two cross-town rivals were looking to make a statement in the young campaign.

“BC is always an important game,” Baskind said. “There is definitely a regional rivalry there.”

Harvard though is still learning how to play together and fix its mistakes.

“We have a lot of different personalities on attack, and we are trying to figure out how to best utilize them in a single unit,” Baskind said. “We’re well on our way to figuring it out, but it’s clear that we’re not there just yet.”

The Crimson had a balanced attack with five players contributing to the scoreboard and tallying more shots on goal.

Defensively, the team struggled in the second half to adjust and defend against the ball.

“The thing that stuck out was our inability to adjust to the different situations we were seeing,” Baskind said.

“We were a little more patient in the first half than we were in the second,” VanderMeulen added. “We took care of the ball more.”

BC came out stronger in the second half. The Eagles quickly scored two straight goals, extending their lead to 9-6.

Tetreault scored her third goal, Halpern her second, and Baskind her first and second to bring Harvard back on the map, evening the score at 10 each with less than 10 minutes to play. Baskind’s goals were 25 seconds apart.

After this, both the Crimson defense and offense fell apart. BC controlled most of the draws and ground-ball pickups in the last seven minutes.

“We should have been getting off good shots,” VanderMeulen said.

“Offensively, I think we needed to play smarter,” Baskind added.

The home team finished with more shots on goal, in addition to scoring the last five goals.

Several of Harvard’s turnovers were in the second half. But the Crimson still caused several turnovers, as Baskind, Tetreault, junior Ellen Gleason, and rookie Lauren Tomkinson each caused BC to turn the ball over.

Harvard also had trouble with fouls. The Crimson players committed 38 fouls while the Eagles had only 12. BC took advantage of Harvard’s penalties, scoring seven of its eight given free-position shots. The Crimson scored three of its five free-position shots.

“BC capitalized on our mistakes,” VanderMeulen said.

Harvard is confident that it can adjust in its upcoming games and put some tallies in the win column.

“We play a schedule this tough for a reason,” Baskind said, “and I am confident in our ability to learn from these games.”