W. Soccer Looking For Fire

When making predictions for the Harvard women's soccer team's game against traditional rival Brown this morning, you can forget individual statistics, players' sizes and the oodles and oodles of other facts and figures often used to quantify sports bets.

The outcome of this key Ivy game will be decided on two intangibles uttered in mantra-like fashion by Crimson Coach Tim Wheaton: emotion and fire.

"Emotion and fire, emotion and fire," Wheaton said. "That's what this game's going to be about, and that's what this game's always been about. The Harvard-Brown game, one of the oldest rivalries in collegiate soccer, is always going to be about who wants it the most."

This year, the "fire" factor will be particularly important in predicting the game's outcome. When you look at natural talent, previous records and other stats, the teams are virtually dead even.

"When it comes down to overall capability, we're in a dead heat with them," Wheaton said. "They have some real strengths and we have some real strengths."

The Bears will be led by a strong and well organized defensive backfield, a star midfield player in Nikki Barber and forward Mia Dammen, the leading goal-scorer in the Ivy League as of last week.

Harvard will rely on an improving freshman class and perhaps the best defensive backfield in the league, anchored by Co-Captain Erin Matias.

The teams' parity in capability is manifest in a shared experience: both have faced number two Stanford this season and barely lived to tell about it.

Harvard was trounced by the Cardinal, 3-0, while the Bears were roughed up, 5-0. But don't think for a moment that Harvard's slightly more respectable score against the Cardinal has fostered any Crimson preconceptions about Brown.

"Sure, we came out against Stanford with two more goals than they did, but that won't make any difference in our thinking coming into the game," Wheaton said. "We're just going to be thinking emotion and fire."