Women Booters Impress Despite UConn's 4-2 Win

The Harvard women's soccer team is good The University of Connecticut team is great.

So when the two teams tangled yesterday, all the Crimson wanted was a strong showing.

After 90 minutes of tenacious defense, aggressive offense and gutsy goalkeeping, the Huskies prevailed. 4-2, at the Business School. But in the loss, the Crimson got its strong showing. In fact, it got a real strong showing.

Harvard's record dropped to 5-3, but the Crimson's impressive showing against the top-ranked team in New England and a semi-finalist in last year's NCAA's was encouraging UConn, meanwhile, raised its mark to an oh-so-impressive 15-0-1 and did it without three of its starters.

For the opening 10 minutes the two teams sparred cautiously, both exhibiting strong midfield play. Connecticut's first chance, off a corner kick, was turned into the game's opening tally by the Huskies Melissa Morrone lofted a picture-perfect shot into the middle of the goalie's box where freshman Shelley McElroy just as perfectly headed it over the outstretched arms of Crimson netminder Lisa Rowning. For Rowning, also a freshman, it was deja vu, since McElroy was the star last year at Rowning's rival high school in Lake Oswego, Oregon.

Shortly thereafter, Harvard had its first scoring opportunity of the afternoon. Its leading scorer, Kelly Landry, took the feed from fellow striker Linda Doyle, outran the last UConn defender and had Huskie goalie Laura Skaza one-on-one. Skaza held her ground, though, and dived across the path of the oncoming Landry to spear the ball, sending Landry and the Crimson's best threat of the afternoon flying.

The Cantabs suffered a tough blow 10 minutes later, however, when in a mad scramble in front of the Harvard net the Crimson's Brigitte Duffy accidentally put the ball in her own goal. The miscue marred an otherwise strong performance by the Harvard sophomore Harvard rallied eight minutes later when Jennifer Greeley's steal led to a Kelly Landry goal It was Landry's seventh goal of the year, best on the team, and extended her personal goal-scoring streak to five games.

But the Huskies then put the game away with two goals in the second half. Despite the deficit, however, the Crimson continued to impress. "We kept on playing hard all through the game," a pleased Harvard Coach Bob Scalise said afterwards. "They had to bring back their starting team at the end, we were playing so well."

The Harvard pressure paid off when a Debbie Field free kick was fed by Meave O'Mara to freshman Judy Marson for a goal.

UConn Coach Len Tsantiris was equally pleased with his team's performance. "We played very well: we had to," he said. "We moved well and took our opportunities. They [Harvard] are always tough. Everytime we come up here they give us a tough game."

THE NOTEBOOK: Harvard has two key home games coming up: a must-win Ivy match against Princeton Saturday at 11 a.m. and Tuesday at 2:30 against UMass.