Dartmouth Opens First-Half Lead To Take Game

Too little, too late is becoming a trend for the Harvard field hockey team.

After getting outscored, 11-0, in the first half of its past two losses against No. 4 Princeton and No. 9 Boston College, the Crimson (5-10, 2-4 Ivy) let Dartmouth (9-7, 4-2) gain a 4-2 advantage in its last conference home game of the season, and a late rally couldn’t hold off the Big Green. Harvard fell, 5-3, dropping its sixth game out of its past seven and ensuring a losing record in conference play.

“I think that we had trouble recovering from Dartmouth’s string of first half goals,” co-captain Kristin Bannon said. “Our momentum improved in the second half, but we were unable to recover from first-half mistakes.”

It was a similar script this week coming off two tough losses against top-10 teams, but Harvard failed to take advantage of its opportunity to pull even with the Big Green in the Ivy League standings.

Freshman goalie Cynthia Tassopoulos continued her solid work between the pipes with eight saves, but the Crimson simply didn’t have an answer for Dartmouth’s deep offense—five different Big Green players scored the team’s goals.

Harvard fell behind early, as a Dartmouth cross found the back of the net to give the Big Green a 1-0 lead at the 2:32 mark. Dartmouth extended its lead when Kelly Hood—second in the Ivy League in points—scored on a penalty corner. Crimson freshman Emma Keller cut the deficit in half roughly midway through the first frame when she knocked in the rebound from sophomore Pilar Mayora’s long shot that deflected off Dartmouth’s goalie.

The Big Green scored two goals within three minutes to take a 4-1 lead at the 23:54 mark of the half. Harvard’s attack was strong throughout the first half, and it wasn’t two minutes before Dickson took a corner insertion from co-captain Elizabeth Goodman-Bacon and fired a low shot past the goalie to cut the deficit to 4-2.

The Crimson continued to put the Big Green in tough situations through the end of the first half. Harvard racked up five shots and a penalty corner within 40 seconds towards the end of the frame, but several blocks and a high Dickson shot that was nicely gloved for a save prevented the Crimson from cutting the deficit further before intermission.

Both squads followed the action-packed first frame with tough defense to open the second half. After a couple of errant Big Green shots, freshman Katelin Wahl could not have picked a better time to notch her first collegiate goal when she knocked in a shot off a penalty corner to bring Harvard within one goal.

While Dartmouth’s defense showed up in the second half, holding the Crimson to just three shots, Harvard had several chances to even the score.

“We were able to settle into a rhythm in the second half,” junior Pilar Curtis said. “We generated stronger offense and scoring opportunities, but we were unable to overcome Dartmouth’s first-half lead.”

Two missed opportunities late in the game sealed the Crimson’s fate. Dickson’s strike with five minutes left in the game was blocked by the defense, and Dartmouth’s Jessica Stearns saved freshman Nina Kucharczyk’s shot at the 67:33 mark.

With less than a minute to go, Tassopoulos made three-consecutive saves, but the Big Green was able to put the game out of reach when a rebound shot made it past Tassopoulos with twenty seconds left in the game to make it 5-3.

“I think that we had trouble recovering from Dartmouth’s string of first half goals,” Bannon said. “Our momentum improved in the second half, but we were unable to recover from first half mistakes.”

The Crimson will welcome New Hampshire to Jordan Field on Tuesday evening at 6:00 p.m. for its home finale.

“Going into our last week of play,” Bannon said, “we will work on minimizing our opponent’s opportunities through better circle defense and work to capitalize on our offense play.”