Men Harriers Falter; Women's Squad Triumphs

Harvard field hockey Coach Edie Mabrey sent up some trial balloons yesterday, but she didn't get a very good reading.

Mabrey juggled her lineup in an attempt to find the best combination, and though the stick women claimed their largest margin of victory all season in defrocking visiting Boston College, 5-1, yesterday, the Crimson mentor is in a quandary.

"I still don't know what I'm going to do," Mabrey said of her lineup for Saturday's showdown with Ivy for Dartmouth in Hanover.

Why all the confusion from a coach whose team holds a 7-1-1 record overall and a 2-0 mark in league play? While her teammates travel to fight the Big Green. Co-Captain Maureen Finn will make a trip of her own--to her sister's wedding.

Finn's absence at center halfback means more than the loss of a team leader. The Malvern, Penn. native anchors the defense that has tallied five shutouts and allowed only seven goals in its nine outings this year.

Mabrey decided to use the warm-up against the 2-7-1 Eagles as a proving ground for the various Finn-less combinations she thought most promising. Finn sat out nearly all of the first half, and when she entered the game, it was as an attacker. Without Finn. Harvard could manage only a 1-1 tie: with her the stick women played 4-0 hockey.

The Crimson's domination of the second half was such a reversal from the stick women's first-half doldrums that Finn's return couldn't have been the only factor. The ball stayed in the Eagle end for more than 31 of the half's 35 minutes.

It took 13 minutes for the Harvard pressure to pay off, but the Crimson finally broke the 1-1 deadlock on a penalty corner give-and-go. Jennifer White pushed a penalty corner to Bambi Taylor who returned the hall to White for a nine-yard slapshot goal.

The stick women continued to assault the Eagle net and less than two minutes later Forced B.C. netminder Naney Gonselves to cover the ball and thus yield a penalty stroke. Finn jerked the ball into the left corner to give the Crimson a two-goal edge.

Kate Martin assisted on a Beth Mullen Blast for Harvard's fourth score, and White's deflection of an Andy Mainelly shot earned white a hat trick and gave the Crimson its highest tally of the year.

White scored Harvard's only first-half goal when Elen O'Neill flipped it to her after drawing a crowd at the top of the Eagle penalty circle. Alone, eight yards from the goal line. White easily notched the score.

The notebook: The stick women learned Monday that Pat Constantikes was suffering from a stress fracture and would be unable to return to action this year.