Doctor, Doctor: Good News, Bad News for W. Soccer

STORRS, Conn.—Yesterday’s showdown at No. 9 UConn was the Harvard women’s soccer team’s first chance to test itself against a top-10 team. Thanks to the cancellation of the Sept. 16 game at No. 4 Penn State, the showdown at Storrs became the Crimson’s toughest challenge of the regular season.

Harvard can leave yesterday’s 1-0 overtime defeat comforted by the fact that it was not that far from winning. The Crimson made good defensive decisions to the point where UConn needed a fortuitous bounce on a free kick to actually win the game. Harvard especially looked good at the outset of every period, when the team had several scoring chances on corner kicks and actually outcornered UConn overall.

The fact that the Crimson can hold strong against a program that has made the NCAA quartefinals in eight consecutive seasons and went 16-0-1 against Harvard from 1982 to 1998 is in itself an accomplishment.

As for the bad news, the Crimson found itself playing for survival during the latter half of each period as UConn consistently had Harvard on the defensive.

“We definitlely dominated earlier in halves and they dominated later in halves,” said Harvard Coach Tim Wheaton. “It’s hard to say whether its fitness—although I think we’re incredibly fit.”

The Crimson struggled to mount any kind of run or attack during those stretches. The Huskies were not blind to that fact.

“I noticed when I was up in the second half, I was like, ‘Wow, they’re just sitting back right now.’ You could tell,” said UConn midfielder Mary-Beth Bowie.

Harvard has now scored just one goal in its last 196 minutes of play.

Bowie believes that the Huskies were able to make Harvard look fatigued because of their deep bench.

“With our team—it happened against Notre Dame, it happened today—there’s just so much depth, and we put so many subs in,” Bowie said. “I don’t think there’s another team that subs as much as we do and has as many players that can be effective as we do.”

Harvard can’t really say the same. Only two of its 24 goals this season have come from outside of the regular starting lineup, and most of the players behind the frontrunners are rarely pulled out. Depth gives the Huskies an advantage over any team.

But despite all it was up against, the Crimson still showed it had the potential to beat a team at UConn’s level. This is not surprising for a Harvard team whose defense once gave up just one goal in a seven-game stretch—a defense featuring a goalkeeper with no fear in sacrificing herself.

Referee’s whistles were not kind to Cheryl Gunther yesterday. During one occassion in regulation, the officials hesitated several seconds before calling a UConn forward offsides. Gunther, playing to the whistle as she should, aggresively dived onto the loose ball and nearly took a cleat full-force to her face. She was shaken up on the play—one which the officials should have protected her from ever having to make.

An offsides whistle would have been appreciated when UConn freshman Zahra Jalalian made the run which led to the Huskies’ game-winning goal. A whistle did come, but it was followed by a red card for Gunther after taking out Jalalian.

“It was a rotten way to end it,” Gunther said.

So if nearly getting Gunther killed during regulation wasn’t enough, the officials also had to banish her from yesterday’s game and Saturday’s game against Dartmouth as well.

Gunther will be back for another key regional matchup against No. 25 Hartford next Wed. If the Crimson wins that game as well as the rest of its schedule, it should be more than enough to secure a top-16 seed and regional hosting honors.

Or Harvard can, like last year, lose out the final games of its season and merely hope to make the tournament. The Crimson will have to prove that it has learned from last season.

“We’re a very good team, we’re just having a little problem finishing right now,” Gunther said. “We’re not going to go down like [last year] again, no way.”