Old Faces, New Season

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For all the talent that Harvard women’s lacrosse coach Lisa Miller has brought to Cambridge over the past few years, the one problem that she could not fix immediately was her squad’s lack of experience playing at the collegiate level.

Despite retaining only one senior last season and three the year before, the Crimson finally has a core of veteran players that it can count on in 2016. With six players in each of the junior and senior classes, the team fields an impressive amount of experience and hopes that the growing pains of previous years are now over.

“The lineup is more balanced as a whole,” said Miller, who is in her ninth season at the helm of the program. “There are things we’re doing in practice this year, more detailed and more complicated drills, that we haven’t been able to do in the past.”

The familiarity on the team begins with its leadership. The three co-captains from 2015 have all returned, along with the entire coaching staff, which means that players will look up to the same leaders for the second consecutive year.

With Audrey Todd leading the midfield, and defender Tory Waldstein and goalie Kelly Weis holding down the defense, Harvard has three seniors who understand how to direct the team. This expertise manifests itself both on the practice field and during game day.

“Everything feels more comfortable when we’re in practice,” Todd said. “People have a better sense of what they have to do, and it makes it really easy for the captains to make sure everything’s going according to plan.”

The Crimson, by virtue of graduating only one senior who played sparingly last season, returns each starter and goalscorer from last year’s squad. This team was good enough to finish tied for third in the Ivy League last year.

Junior attacker Marisa Romeo, after becoming the seventh player in school history to score 48 or more goals in her freshman season, looks to bounce back after an injury late last year cut her sophomore campaign short.

Despite missing the final three games, she still led the team with 48 points on 37 goals and 11 assists. As a result of her performance, she was named to the All-Ivy first team.

If Romeo can maintain her scoring pace from the past two seasons, she will move into the top 10 in the Harvard record books for both most career goals and most career points.

“Marisa is working her way back from injury, but she’s already been drawing the opponent’s best defender and even been face-guarded at some points,” Miller said. “I think it speaks volumes of the kind of player she is, even when she’s not 100 percent.”

On the offensive end, the Crimson also looks to Todd and sophomore midfielder Julia Glynn to provide the goals.

Glynn was another one of the Crimson’s three All-Ivy first team selections, being named to the All-Ivy second team as a freshman after leading Harvard with 44 points—27 goals and 17 assists—which is tied for eighth most assists in a single season in school history.

Meanwhile, Waldstein and junior defender Emma Ford lead the defense. Ford was the team’s final member of the All-Ivy first team in 2015, and recorded a team-high 35 ground balls. Waldstein, on the other hand, has been a stalwart for Harvard since freshman year, starting every single game.

In goal the Crimson calls on Weis, another one of the team’s four-year starters who arrived in the two large recruiting classes of several years ago. She, like Romeo, has school records in her sight, as she is already in the top ten for most career saves.

In 2016, Weis entered the season with 333; projecting her average performance forward, she is on pace to graduate as one of the top three scorers in the program’s history.

“It’s good to know we have her in goal,” Todd said. “It gives the rest of the team confidence and definitely takes pressure off the offense.”

Weis and the rest of the defense will be crucial for Harvard against the potent offenses of several teams in the Ancient Eight, including defending champion Princeton and fellow title challenger Penn.

The Crimson will face the Tigers, who are currently ranked No. 6 in the nation, at home early in conference play. However, the team must wait until later in the season to battle the Quakers; then Harvard will travel south to Philadelphia for the matchup.

“They [Princeton and Penn] certainly set the standard for excellence in the conference,” Miller said. “But each game in the Ivy is tough and often comes right down to the wire. We have to be ready to battle every time out.”

—Crimson staff writer George Hu can be reached at yianshenhu@college.harvard.edu.