W. Soccer Notebook: Goal-Scorers Could Have Seen It Coming

Harvard’s two goal-scorers yesterday aren’t just talented finishers. Evidently, they’re also gifted fortune-tellers.

Junior forward Emily Colvin, who opened the Crimson’s scoring with the first goal of her career, wasn’t worried before her first Harvard start—at least not about how she’d play.

“Before the game, I was thinking, ‘Well, what if I score? What am I going to do?’” Colvin said. “But I didn’t plan anything. I was just excited. I didn’t plan ahead. I should have planned ahead.”

Meanwhile, junior Alisha Moran—who recorded the Crimson’s other two tallies—focuses on improving one aspect of her game every time she plays.

Guess what she chose yesterday.

“I actually said, ‘I want to score some goals,’” Moran recalled. “I was like, ‘I want to finish the ball,’ [and] it happened. I’m happy.”

So, Alisha, what can we expect to see in Friday’s game versus Stanford?

“[Me] winning punts, because it kept bouncing like a foot over my head.”

Left is Right

Most of Harvard’s second-half attacks came down the left flank, with captain and left back Caitlin Fisher initiating many of them.

Early in the half, Fisher drew the (loud) ire of Crimson coach Tim Wheaton when she declined to play a long ball toward the corner flag.

For the rest of the game, she sent brilliant balls over the top of the Vermont defense at nearly every opportunity.

Fisher was joined on the left side by senior midfielder Katie Westfall, who frequently floated over to take on defenders and create more havoc in the Catamount end.

“What we were trying to do was get behind the defense, even if it wasn’t a good ball to feet or someone laying it in so they could first-touch get a cross off,” Westfall said. “They were pushing their line up, so we just tried to hit it to the corner flag, get them facing their own goal and then lock them in.”

Moran’s second goal came off a cross by senior striker Alisa Sato from the left side.

Not in Deep Trouble

Harvard’s depth was on display all game, as Wheaton cycled players through all ten field positions. Moran entered the game immediately after Colvin’s 22nd-minute goal, but senior back Lauren Cozzolino and sophomore midfielder Allison Kaveney, among others, also gave Wheaton key minutes.

“Our strength is depth,” Wheaton said. “We have a bunch of players at every position that can go in and play and I think fresh bodies playing hard are going to be our strength.”

Only sophomore goalkeeper Katie Shields played all 90 minutes. Shields typically platoons with sophomore Maja Agustsdottir, but Agustsdottir flew to Paris Saturday night to join the Icelandic national team for a game.

“We have strong people who come off the bench in every position,” Colvin said. “That’s a change from last year.”

The Crimson’s depth stood out despite the absence of sophomore Sara Sedgwick, who was injured Friday against Penn State when the Nittany Lion keeper tried to punch a ball away, but hit Sedgwick’s chest instead. Sedgwick will have x-rays today to determine whether any ribs are broken.

Falling Behind

Harvard conceded a fourth-minute tally yesterday after giving up two goals in the first 21 minutes against Penn State. Still, Wheaton doesn’t foresee the problem continuing throughout the season.

“[Yesterday’s] was just a great goal and sometimes you’ve just got to hand it to the other team,” Wheaton said. “I think Penn State was more a function of it being our opening day and today we were in position. We did well. The girl just hit one. I don’t think we did anything wrong today or didn’t come out hard. I think it’s just she got one. But yeah, certainly one of the things that we need to focus on is coming out of the box hard.”

The Children Are Our Future

In conjunction with yesterday’s home opener, the Crimson hosted “Youth Day”. All kids in attendance received a team photograph as they entered Ohiri Field, and the players lingered after the game signing autographs on the pictures, miniature soccer balls they threw into the stands at halftime, youth team jerseys and anything else the kids presented to them.

Wheaton was heard asking his niece if she wanted him to sign something “Uncle Tim.”

A free week at Wheaton’s Elite Girls Soccer Camp was also raffled off at halftime.

—Staff writer Alan G. Ginsberg can be reached at aginsber@fas.harvard.edu.