New Season Offers W. Lacrosse New Chance to Turn Heads

Last year’s Harvard women’s lacrosse team looked to improve on a 3-11 record while transforming the program under a new head coach.

With last year’s leading scorers, All-Ivy selections, and head coach back for another season, this year’s squad can pick up where it left off.

The smoother segue has allowed the team to work on the finer points that lost out to more fundamental transitional concerns last season.

“Last year, we were focusing on integrating new players and changing the face of our program,” co-captain Catherine Sproul said.

The 2004 season had to rebuild personnel and redirect the team under new head coach Sarah Nelson ’94, an All-American at Harvard and recent selection for America’s World Cup team.

The Crimson finished last season 6-9 (1-6 Ivy), but the record fails to account for the narrowness of some margins of defeat.

“We had something like five or six one-goal games out of our nine losses last year,” Sproul said. “We need to translate those one-goal games into wins.”

To turn those games into wins, Harvard must address its inability last season to follow through in the second half.

“A lot of times when we lost because of one goal, it was a second-half let-down. We need to spring the balance the other way,” Sproul said.

In order to solve this problem, the team has spent much of the preseason running end-game scenarios to avoid critical late breakdowns.

“We’ve been focusing a lot on game management skills,” senior Danielle Travers said. “It’s starting to be inherent.”

Yet it will be for naught if the Crimson cannot convert the endurance of its second-half defense into threats up front.

That attack may be fueled by a corps of sprightly freshmen. Natalie Curtis and Jacqueline Hehir have made waves with their speed at midfield, and attack Caroline Simmons may pick up significant playing time this year. Attack Tara Schoen may also grab a lot of playing time when she recovers fully from illness.

“I don’t know what the coaches have in store,” Sproul said. “We have a lot of depth in the upper class, so we’ll see if they go for experience or speedy legs.”

The team graduated last year’s captains, but last year’s large junior class translates into nine experienced seniors this year.

Back from last year are the team’s two leading scorers, Sproul and fellow senior Casey Owens. The team returns both of last year’s second-team All-Ivy League selections, Owens and senior defensive midfielder Allison Kaveney.

This year’s squad is the largest in recent memory, with nearly as many freshmen as seniors. Eight first-years are jockeying for a spot on the starting lineup, leading to more competition even in scrimmage.

No matter what the lineup may be, any combination of the 29 players will see serious challenges.

In Ivy play, Harvard will face two of the best teams in the nation, IWLCA preseason No. 2 Princeton and No. 10 Dartmouth. The Crimson’s tightest competition is likely to come from other Ivy teams, and Sproul named the Penn, Cornell, and Brown match-ups as “absolute must-wins.”

The Crimson has stiff competition outside of the Ivy League as well. Syracuse begins the year ranked No. 12 by the IWLCA, and BU goes into the season at No. 15. InsideLacrosse also ranks BC No. 20.

“I think we’re going to surprise a lot of people this year,” said co-captain Kelly Noon.

“Our weakness is we haven’t had a winning season recently...We don’t really know how to win games, and I think that’s the transition we have to make this year, especially in close games,” Noon added.

STARTING ANEW

Snow will likely surround Jordan Field as Harvard tests its reinforced attack against Massachusetts at 4 p.m. Saturday.

The Crimson may need both aggressive defense and well-managed offense against UMass, which is likely to try to turn the game into a dogfight.

“They’re very scrappy and aggressive,” Sproul said. “UMass will be all over us, all over the field. It’s going to be very intense.”

The team is likely to field an especially tenacious offense.

“UMass is good about making sure if they take a shot and it doesn’t go in, they work really hard to fall back,” Travers said.

But he added, “We’ve been doing a really good job with it. We’re not going to be susceptible to the quick-transition goals that they rely on.”

The bout with UMass is the first of a three-game homestand for the Crimson, which plays Quinnipiac on the following Saturday and the Orange on the subsequent Wednesday.

“We’re really anticipating a very good season. This is one of the strongest teams we’ve had coming into the preseason,” Sproul said. “This week we’re just going to have to struggle with the snow.”

—Staff writer Samuel C. Scott can be reached at sscott@fas.harvard.edu.