Women's Soccer Remains Unbeaten in Ivy League

Harvard (8-3-1, Ivy 4-0) propelled itself past the Bears on Saturday afternoon at Soldiers Field in a 3-1 victory, its fourth straight win in the Ivy conference.

But the Crimson started slow. Brown led the way with a quick goal six minutes into the first half.

“They’re a good team, so they took advantage of our mistakes,” freshman forward Joan Fleischman said.

Co-captain midfielder Peyton Johnson called the early goal a good lesson.

“Getting scored on early is always tough, and it’s a really good learning experience for us to hopefully not have that happen again and learn that when we’re in that situation, we are able to come back,” Johnson said.

But the team did not change its general strategy or lose its composure in reaction to Brown’s goal.

“We wanted to keep it simple,” Johnson said. “We didn’t want to overthink it or get wrapped up in any one moment. We wanted to make sure we continued to do the things we’d worked on in practice and focus on ourselves.”

With 25:45 seconds to go in the first half, freshman forward Midge Purce sent a free kick into the box, and sophomore midfielder Haley Washburn finished it off with a header straight into the top of the net to tie things up.

The Crimson and the Bears remained tied for the rest of the first half. Notable shots came from a side-post shot by co-captain Elizabeth Weisman and a bicycle kick from Purce snatched out of the air by Brown’s goalie wih seven minutes to go,

“We ended the first half knowing that we’d had a lot of really good chances and knowing that if we just kept playing our game and doing what we had been doing for another 45 [minutes], we’d get the results we wanted,” Johnson said.

But the Crimson would not be content with a tie.

“It was good that we tied it up, but we knew that that wasn’t enough and we had to come out stronger than we had before and focus on this [second] 45 minutes and not on anything else,” Fleischman said.

Purce, assisted by Fleischman, scored a goal right off the bat in the second half, only to be called offsides. But the setback did not deter Harvard from piling on the pressure.

“It showed that we weren’t going to be content with a tie, and we were going to keep going after them,” Fleischman said. “Even though that one [goal] got called back it really motivated us to go for the second and third.”

About 11 minutes into the second half, the Crimson found the back of the net again. Junior midfielder Marie Margolius put in another header off an assist from sophomore defender Alika Keene.

Twelve minutes later, Weisman added another goal off an assist from Margolius.

“It was pretty fast-paced, especially toward the end of the second half,” Fleischman said. “We were just really able to use our fitness, our subs, and our legs to maintain control of the tempo.”

But Brown had its fair share of opportunities as well.

“They’re really good at transition and they have some strong shooters, so we knew we had to take care of them, which our backs did really well,” Fleischman said.

Fleischman also gave props to the fans.

“[They] really helped the momentum in our favor, and we loved the support,” she said.

The team is looking forward to next Saturday’s game against Princeton.

“We know that we have to take every game one at a time and that every game is important,” Fleischman said. “If we play our game, we’re playing to our strengths; it doesn’t matter who we are playing; we’ll come out on top.”

Johnson said that the team views every opponent in the same light.

“The mentality we have this year is not to really think about the Ivy League—it’s just one step at a time,” she said. “Every week we prepare for the next game and we go into that weekend and as soon as that game’s over it’s just another game the next week so that’s really how we’ve been approaching it.”

This week, the team plans to stick to what they’ve got.

“[We’re going to] just keep focusing on us and doing what we do best,” Fleischman said. “That’s all that really matters.”