Cornell Solves Harvard's Staunch Defense

For the Harvard field hockey team, the 2005 season has been one of streaks. The defense has played spectacularly the whole way, save one hiccup against Duke. But coming into Sunday’s Ivy matchup against Cornell, the Crimson had also lost four consecutive games.

Unfortunately for Harvard, the latter streak wasn’t broken in Ithaca, N.Y.

The Big Red (6-4, 4-1 Ivy) downed the Crimson (5-6, 1-2) 2-1 on Sunday afternoon as Harvard found itself on the wrong side of another close contest.

Five of the team’s six losses this year have come by one-goal margins.

The game also brought a halt to another streak the Crimson would have liked to continue. In the recent series between the two schools, Harvard had simply dominated. The Crimson had taken the previous five meetings by a combined score of 19-1. Cornell had failed to score a goal against Harvard since the 2000 meeting between the two schools, a 5-1 Harvard victory.

Yet the Big Red was able to turn the tables on the Crimson this time by capitalizing on Harvard’s unproductive offense.

“Cornell as a program has come a long way in the past two years,” captain midfielder Jen McDavitt said. “We respect them just as any other Ivy League opponent. But today wasn’t about our opponent, it was about us and our mistakes.”

This game, like so many others for the Crimson this season, was a defensive battle. After a scoreless first half, the Big Red got on the board first as Mandy Malzberg snuck a shot past freshman goalie Kelly Knoche at 39:55 of the second half.

“It was a tough shot for Kelly because it was a scramble in front of the net, with everyone going for the ball,” junior Gretchen Fuller said. “It just got lifted up high, sort of surprising everyone.”

That lead, however, would prove to be short-lived as senior midfielder Jane Sackovich capitalized on a penalty corner, taking a pass from McDavitt and ripping a shot past Cornell goalie Lizzie Goldblatt to tie the score 1-1 at 41:00.

“The insert on the penalty corner was actually a little off,” McDavitt said. “Jane made a great play adjusting to it and had an awesome shot.”

But despite out-shooting the Big Red 11-10 and holding a decisive edge in penalty corners at 9-2, the Crimson could not translate ball possession into one more goal.

Knoche made stop after stop to preserve the stalemate—making eight saves including an athletic stop on a Big Red breakaway—but Cornell senior Blair Corcoran notched the game-winner at 55:16 off a pass from Lindsay Moyer.

The loss drops Harvard to unfamiliar sub-.500 territory in both its overall and Ivy records. The Big Red, meanwhile, improves to a 4-1 Ivy mark, matching its all-time best single-season conference total.

Next up for the Crimson is another tough road game against archrival Yale this Saturday at noon.

“It’s going to be a test of our character,” McDavitt said. “This is the final part of our season and I know everyone is looking forward to stepping up to the challenge.”