Women's Soccer Drops Opening Game to No. 10 UConn

When it comes to scheduling nonconference games, Harvard women’s soccer isn’t in the business of padding stats in easy early-season games. Instead, the team came out firing over the weekend, opening its 2016 campaign with a Friday night match against No. 10 UConn at Jordan Field.

The 90 minutes itself was a tough affair for the Crimson as the Huskies (3-0) outplayed the home team with a well-rounded performance to take a 3-1 victory and drop Harvard to an 0-1 start.

The result, however, was not necessarily one out of line with first-year head coach Chris Hamblin’s vision for a successful season.

“I think we gave a really good account of ourselves,” Hamblin said. “The first game of the year, coming in against a top-ten team…we knew that we were going to be tested. We want to be able to play good teams.”

The Crimson found a couple of bright spots in competing against a top-tier team. Freshman midfielder Maggie Basta tallied an assist and a shot on goal in her first collegiate game, while senior Rachel Garcia put home Harvard’s goal in the 66th minute for her fourth career goal with the Crimson. The score pulled the home team to within one goal after trailing 2-0 after the first half.

“Maggie played a great ball to me,” said Garcia. “I was able to get one touch on a defender and finish with my second touch. We got to go 2-1—[it] kind of put us back in the game.”

UConn raced to the lead just over eight minutes into the game as Harvard defender Carly Rotatori was dispossessed by UConn senior forward Stephanie Ribeiro, who laid the ball off to classmate Maddie Damn outside the box. The midfielder needed just one touch to take advantage of the empty space and belt a perfectly placed screamer into the top right corner.

Twenty eight minutes later, it was UConn again as a cross from the right wing found senior forward Rachel Hill, who used her first touch in the box to go around Harvard captain Bailey Gary before deftly chipping senior netminder Lizzie Durack to double the lead.

The entire Crimson offense generated several opportunities, though it failed to capitalize on most of them. Garcia narrowly overshot the crossbar in the 34th minute and nearly tied the game in the 70th minute as well.

Amidst a scramble in front of the net in which the Huskies goalie was on the ground, Damm cleared the ball just in front of the line to prevent a tied game in the 70th minute.

“The difference between the two teams today was just a little of the clinical finishing, especially in the final third,” Hamblin said. “This is really our first competition outside of our scrimmages, and we found out that we were a little rusty in that area, which is to be expected.”

Harvard dominated UConn on the corners department by a wide margin, 14 to one, and outshot their opponent 14-10. Considering the Huskies significantly outshot their opponents in their first two games, Hamblin said the fact that the Crimson were able to outmuscle UConn in that area points to the team’s strong “territorial” performance.

Garcia’s goal also marked the first time that the Huskies have been scored on this season.

Durack saved five shots, while senior forward Midge Purce tallied five shots. UConn found insurance in the 79th minute from a save that Durack wasn’t able to corral, as Hill found the back of the net off the rebound for her second goal of the game.

Asked if the game’s 3-1 result was an accurate measuring stick for the team, Hamblin noted that he was satisfied with the team’s performance, despite the loss against a top-ten team.

“We’ll go back and we’ll look at the video and see where we can be better, but overall I’m really happy with the effort and the commitment from the players,” Hamblin said. “Now we’ve just go to fine-tune and start getting some of those final details right.”

With games every three or four days until mid-September, the team will look to build upon the first match’s positive takeaways, mitigate its mistakes, and, as Garcia noted, keep on getting “comfortable as a team.”

–Staff writer Bryan Hu can be reached at bryan.hu@thecrimson.com.