AOTW: Sophomore Sparks Crimson Offense

The Harvard women’s soccer team started the year off on the wrong foot.

The squad traveled to the West Coast only to return with two losses, giving up four goals and failing to score once.

Over the course of the next six matches, the Crimson responded, going undefeated to improve its record to 3-2-3.

But during these six games, the team’s offensive performance remained stagnant, producing only seven goals on the offensive end.

This alarming trend hurt Harvard as it began its Ivy season traveling to Philadelphia, where the Penn women thumped the Crimson to the tune of a 2-0 victory.

Harvard was still resting on that one wrong foot. The defense was stellar, headed by junior keepers Lauren Mann and Laura Dale, two of the best goalies, statistically, in the nation. But the offense still struggled.

Enter the foot of Katherine Sheeleigh. The second-year standout forward is no stranger to scoring—last season she led the squad with eight goals and sixteen points, was Ivy League Rookie of the Year, and was chosen third-team freshmen All-American.

This year, the team needed a spark, something to wake its offense from its season long slumber. In the Crimson’s following game against Ivy rival Yale, Sheeleigh provided that spark.

Thirty minutes into the match, Sheeligh ripped a lob pass from her partner up top, freshman star Melanie Baskind, past Yale’s talented keeper Ayana Sumiyasu to break a scoreless tie. The Crimson had been knocking, tallying shot after shot on the standout Bulldog goalie, but it was a shot of the foot of Sheeleigh that opened the door.

Since then, Harvard has hit the ground running. Over the course of its current five-game win streak, the team has tallied an astounding 17 goals. For a team earlier in the season, which could only muster the bare minimum, this is a revelation.

Facing No. 20 Princeton on Saturday, the Crimson needed a similar effort from its talented sophomore to take over first place in the Ivies.

Just 22 seconds into the game, Sheeleigh delivered when took the ball up the right side of the goal, dribbled past the entire Tiger defense, and crossed a perfect ball to the foot of junior Kelli Okuji, who rocketed a shot in for her first goal of the season.

Sheeleigh then nailed a free kick from 30 yards out just seven minutes later. Harvard never looked back.

“We came into this game with a lot of intensity and we really played as a team,” junior Lizzy Nichols said.

It was a total team effort, as it has been all season, but its two underclassmen that are truly leading the way.

Sheeleigh has five goals and five assists for the Crimson, and her 15 points are second only to Baskind, who has tallied 18 in just her first year in crimson and white.

“I couldn’t be more proud of our team,” coach Ray Leone said. “We had two great goals and solid performances from the whole team.”

Now, Harvard controls its own destiny. With two more wins the team will win its first Ivy title in nine years and return to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2004.

Resting on the foot of one standout sophomore, it doesn’t look like the Crimson will skip a beat.

—Staff writer Walter E. Howell can be reached at wehowell@fas.harvard.edu.