Women's Soccer Clinches Late Victory Against Yale

A light rain during Saturday night’s game at Jordan field gave way in the second half to a rousing comeback for the Harvard women’s soccer team.

The Crimson found itself down 1-0 early against Yale, and for over an hour, it dominated the ball, sending in cross after cross, but unable to find an opening in the Bulldog’s resilient defense.

The breakthrough came in the 74th minute, off of a free kick from near-midfield by sophomore defender/midfielder Leah Mohammadi that senior forward Rachel Garcia headed backwards towards fellow senior Midge Purce. The star forward one-timed the ball into the lower left corner for her ninth goal and 20th point of the season.

With new life breathed into the team, Harvard scored again less than seven minutes later to complete the comeback, taking the victory, 2-1. The victory extended the Crimson’s (7-3-0, 2-0 Ivy League) winning streak to five games, while Yale (4-4-3, 0-1-1) still has yet to win within the conference.

Junior midfielder Caroline Chagares tallied the game-winning goal, once again assisted by Mohammadi. The goal was the first of Chagares’ Harvard career, and the timing couldn’t be more perfect to achieve such a milestone.

“One goal down, we just had to keep fighting,” Chagares said. “Keep the ball moving, keep going forward and do our thing. Yale is a great team, and we were happy to get the win.”

Mohammadi’s second assist, this time from the left corner, arched inwards towards a mass of jerseys, and Chagares was able to head the ball into the top right corner.

“I think that in the first half, our message was, we could easily be up by a goal or two, and we’re not—we’re down,” head coach Chris Hamblin said. “I was really, really proud of the patience and the maturity we showed, just to keep plugging away. Just chip away at them and break them down.”

Yale freshman Aerial Chavarin gave the Bulldogs the 1-0 lead when she headed a through ball over senior goalie Lizzie Durack in the eighth minute of the game. The freshman has been a bright spot for Yale, as she now has eight goals on the season.

The Crimson played well from that point onwards, controlling possession for the vast majority of the game, and when it did lose possession, it always got the ball back soon thereafter.

“These are the games in which we had a lot of the ball, we had a lot of opportunities,” Hamblin said. “We knew that Yale would be a very strong defensive team in the way that their shape was, with five defenders and three midfielders. We knew we’d have to be patient to break them down.”

Harvard ended up outshooting the Bulldogs 17-2, and on the defensive end in the second half, generally weren’t threatened until scrappy play set in in the final ten minutes, when Durack and the defense were able to thwart all attempts.

Mohammadi, whose two assists on the night gave her a team-leading three on the season, emphasized how the team effort complemented the team’s two goals coming from set-piece plays.

“We played a well-rounded game overall,” Mohammadi said. “[The set pieces] were just another small part that we practiced all week, but the most important part was that we played 90 minutes as hard as we could.”

The end of the game suffered from a bit of controversy from the Yale side after the clock continued to run after a corner kick was awarded to the visitors. With just a few seconds left in the game, the clock hit zero before the Bulldogs could get set, but the game was called officially over.

—Bryan Hu can be reached at bhu01@college.harvard.edu