Kamikaze Clifton Leads Stickwomen

All she wanted was a chance to play.

All she needed was 16 seconds to show she could.

By then, the Harvard field hockey squad's newest fighter had finished her mission.

"She told me to 'go kamikaze'," Alicia Clifton recalled of Coach Edie Mabrey's orders before Saturday's Harvard-Cornell showdown.

But nobody told Clifton to go crazy. She did that on her own.

One for One

And by the time she had finished for good on Saturday, Clifton had driven the Big Red defense batty, depositing two goals--one just 16 seconds into the game--in the Cornell net to spark the Crimson to an important 4-0 win.

All this from a highly touted sophomore whose last varsity start came almost two years ago for her high school team. Before Saturday. Clifton's number of Harvard varsity starts was equaled only by her number of Harvard varsity goals--zero.

The Greenwich, Conn, native changed both of those stats quickly when Mabrey made the move to Clifton, hoping to generate more speed on the artificial turf of Cornell's Schoelkopf Field. The sleek forward made Mabrey look like a genius, consistently beating Big Red defenders to free balls.

Lest you think the game was a one-woman show, understand that the entire offense also turned it one of its finest efforts of the year to down the Ithacans. Granted, the Big Red isn't about to dazzle the field hockey world any time soon, but few teams could have stopped the impressive play of Clifton, Bambi Taylor and Andy Mainelli.

That trio provided difficulties for Cornell goalies Sue Zieman and Wendy Vullo all afternoon, sending 22 shots careening towards them.

Passing

"Our passing game was working as well," Clifton said. "We were working for the shots."

Clifton didn't have to work too hard for her first collegiate goal, though. When Malnelli sent a long ground ball flying towards the streaking sophomore, that's all Clifton needed to put Harvard on top. And these were still 69 minutes, 46 seconds left to play.

Mainclli provided the assist on the Crimson's second goal (9:55) as well, with Taylor this time doing the final damage.

The Crimson put the game out of reach with just 16 minutes gone, when Clifton did it once again, taking a loose ground ball and beating numerous. Big Red defenders to deposit the ball past Zieman.

It became all but a rout when the Mainelli Taylor combination clicked again, this time with Mainelli hitting the twines at the 11:39 mark of the second half. That goal--Mainelli's second Ivy goal of the week--and her two assists Saturday were enough to land her Ivy Player of the Week laurels yesterday.

Lost in the offensive fireworks was the continued impressive plays of the Crimson defense and Harvard netminder Juliet Lamont. Lamont finished Saturday with six saves and her second shutout of the year.

The win evened the Crimson's season mark at 4-4 for a mediocre, 500 mark. But for now the only mark that counts is as perfect as Harvard's play on Saturday: a 2-0 Ivy League mark The Cantabs will put it all on the line this Saturday, when Dartmouth brings the league's only other unbeaten mark to Cambridge for the Ivy showdown of the year.