Minutewomen of UMass March Past Laxwomen

Sprinting down the field on a breakaway, Crimson forward Cindi Ersek looked horrified when Lisa Griswold charged next to her and knocked the ball from her stick.

Ersek, one of the fastest players on the Harvard women's lacrosse team, wasn't used to being outrun.

Kelly McBride looked aghast when her shot with eight minutes left in the first half landed in UMass goalie Ann Scileppi's stomach and not in the back of the net.

With a team-leading 17 goals on the year, McBride wasn't accustomed to having her shots blocked.

And when UMass forward Virginia Armstrong spun through a hoard of Crimson defenders and flipped a shot past Harvard goalie Kelly Dermody with four minutes left in the game, the entire team stared in disbelief.

Harvard wasn't used to losing.

But yesterday, it did, as nationally-ranked UMass (5-0 overall) stormed past the Crimson, 15-11, in front of 40 spectators on cold Soldiers Field.

"I thought it would be a little closer," Minutewoman Coach Pam Hixon said. "But we created a lot of turnovers early and scored some important goals in the first half."

"They went to the goal much stronger than we did," said Crimson Coach Carole Kleinfelder, whose team fell to 4-2 on the year. "You can't let a team like this get ahead early."

UMass jumped in front of the Crimson, 7-2, with five minutes left in the first half and settled for a 8-5 lead at intermission.

But Harvard battled back to pull within two goals in the middle of the second half.

With nine minutes left in the game and UMass leading, 11-8, Crimson forward Anne Needham raced around the Minutewoman net and slammed a shot past Scileppi to put Harvard within two tallies of a tie game.

"That was a really nice goal in the crease," Harvard Captain Blair Wardenburg said. "That's when I thought we were going to win."

UMass slipped ahead, 12-9, when Armstrong took a high pass from Griswold and pumped a shot past Dermody.

But sophomore Kate Felsen scored with five minutes left in the game and Harvard was again only two goals down.

"I thought if they had come within one goal, they might have won it," Hixon said. "We would have been in trouble and they would have smelled it. But we held them off."

A minute later, UMass attack Mary Scott flipped a shot into the Harvard goal.

And after that, UMass began to stall, spreading out its offense and flinging passes back and forth, running down the clock until the Crimson had lost only its first game in three weeks but its second straight to the Minutewomen.

"It's frustrating," Wardenburg said of the UMass delay game. "But if we were in their position, we would do the same thing. We try to double team the ball, but we haven't really practiced it that much."

THE NOTEBOOK: The Crimson's next game is Sunday at the University of Maryland...Last year, UMass toppled Harvard, 6-3...The Minutewomen have defeated the Crimson twice in NCAA Tournament play: 7-6 in 1983 and 5-4 in 1984...McBride and Needham each had three goals yesterday...Felsen had two and Ersek, Leelee Groome and Wardenburg recorded one apiece...Groome led the team in assists with two.