Is Field Hockey Rebuilding?

Getting Harvard field hockey coach Sue Caples to make a firm prediction for her team this season is no easy task. Ask her about non-league foes and she'll talk about how good they've been in the past. Ask her about league foes and she'll say that they are all solid. Ask her what even the team's brochure concedes--that the squad is undergoing a rebuilding year, and you'll get a quizzical look and a rhetorical question: "I don't know," she says. "Is it?"

In other words, she's not saying much.

But she could, right? After all, this season is cut and dried. It's simply a matter of looking at numbers. The Crimson went 4-8-3 last year. It averaged a little over one goal a game. It lost its top three scorers to graduation. It will be a dismal season.

What's so unclear about that?

Truth be told, plenty.

"Everything is so unpredictable these days," she says. "Everyone is so close to each other that you simply have to do your best, take one game at a time and see what happens."

Case in point: last season. The Crimson had one of the best goalies in the east, junior Jessica Milhollin. It had a stifling defensive backfield. It had a skilled string of halfbacks. And it had some slick-passing forwards. Still, it faired poorly in the win-loss department.

"Last year it seemed we dominated our opponents in every department but attacking," Caples says. "The one thing we had problems with was taking chances. We were way too timid and it killed us."

Numbers bear witness. Harvard lost eight games all season. Harvard also lost eight games by one goal. Go figure.

"It was a tough, tough year mentally," Caples said. "We know that with a couple of goals here and there we could have been undefeated. We had everything else."

Unfortunately, this season the Crimson doesn't have "everything else." Commencement proved the team's gravest foe of all. Five superb seniors--Francie Walton, Amy Belisle, Serah Downing, Emily Buxton and Deirdre Long--all walked, leaving the team with gaping holes throughout its attack.

As a result, the Crimson must play a game of "bits' with the other league teams. In a league of equals, the champions will likely be those who are merely a little bit more clever, a little bit more dedicated, a little bit more aggressive, etc. It will be a race of fractions rather than whole numbers.

The team has its share of who players returning, including the most valuable star of last year's squad in Milhollin (142 saves, .910 save percentage). It returns captains Megan Colligan and Sarah Winters, solid leaders at the sweeper and forward positions, respectively. It returns solid midfielders junior Carrie Shumway and sophomore Daphne Clark. And it returns forwards sophomore Courtenay Benedict and junior Maureen O'Brien, the latter of whom scored five goals as a freshmen, only to be hampered by injuries last year.

"What we'll really miss in those who graduated are their presences--their leadership abilities along with their playing abilities," Caples says. "This year we certainly have the solid players, and it looks like they are becoming strong leaders, too."

Those budding leadership characteristics have been in evidence already this fall. The team has been engaged in intense pre-season training workouts since August 26. Those participating have been overwhelmingly impressed with the results.

"We've been working hard and having a lot of fun," Benedict says. "We're psyched and, above all, hungry. We know we can improve on last year, and we're ready to try to prove it."

"Things have gone very well this fall so far," Caples says. "The one thing we've just got to keep in our minds is that on any given day anything can happen. We've got to prepare ourselves for that. The only thing we can count on is that the season will be interesting." FIELD HOCKEY September 7  NEW BRUNSWICK 11  RHODE ISLAND 16  at New Hampshire 20  CONNECTICUT 24  at Providence 28  at Springfield October 1  CORNELL 5  at Boston Univ. 8  at Pennsylvania 11  WILLIAM & MARY 15  YALE 19  at Boston College 22  at Princeton 26  NORTHEASTERN 29  DARTMOUTH November 1  BROWN