Crimson Suffers Losses to Long Beach State, Hofstra

It was a difficult weekend for the Harvard’s women’s soccer team.

After earning its first win of the season against New Hampshire on Sept 8, the Crimson entered this weekend with high hopes.

But with Long Beach State handing Harvard its first loss of the season on Friday, and Hofstra holding the Crimson down 3-2 on Sunday, the celebration ended as quickly as it started.

“It was a depressing game, definitely a difficult game,” said senior goalkeeper Lauren Mann after the Crimson’s 2-0 loss to the Long Beach State 49ers. “Each game we’re all learning lessons and building off of the mistakes of previous games.”

Despite the disappointment, second-year Coach Ray Leone and the senior members of his team believe this past week has motivated the 2008 Ivy League Champions to perform on a higher level for the rest of the season.

“The second half we had a lot of energy, a lot of excitement, a lot of chances,” Leone reflected on both games. “It’s taken us two and a half games to really see the real team. It’s going to come.”

HOFSTRA 3, HARVARD 2

The Crimson showed new confidence on Sunday as the team went on the road to Hempstead, NY less than 48 hours after Friday’s disappointing final whistle.

“Every game we are looking to bring this level, bring more intensity to our game, and I think Friday’s game we did a lot better in the second half,” said senior co-captain Gine Wideroff. “That was great for our confidence, we made long shots which is what we wanted going into [Sunday’s] game.”

With 45 minutes of back-and-forth soccer, the score remained 0-0 going into half time, even with Harvard outshooting the Pride 6-2.

As the second half began, Hofstra took a commanding lead with Salma Tarik and Danielle Murino each getting one past Mann.

It was not until the final 10 minutes that the main excitement began. With 9:49 on the clock, freshman Caroline Albanese sent a volley into the left side of the net to bring the Crimson within one.

Hofstra responded with a penalty kick, raising the score to 3-1. Only 58 seconds later, Harvard senior Lizzy Nichols sent a shot past Pride goalkeeper Krysten Farriella.

“The last push that we made was probably the best that we’ve done this season so far,” Wideroff said. “It was good because we got a taste of our potential, and we are just hoping that from here on out we can be at that level from the beginning of the game, not just for the last ten minutes or even the second half.”

What was especially exciting for Leone and the Crimson was the fact that Harvard finally managed to get a shot in the net, instead of relying solely on defense.

“Sometimes when you are struggling to put it in the net, you just need to break through it,” Leone said. “We scored two goals in five minutes when we hadn’t scored three goals in 290 minutes, or even longer than that if you include the first half [of today’s game], so it was exciting.”

LONG BEACH STATE 2, HARVARD 0

With the prospect of rain and strong winds across Ohiri Field, this was not the California weather that Long Beach State’s women’s soccer team was used to. But that did not stop the 49ers from handing Harvard its first home loss of the season Friday afternoon with a score of 2-0.

While the Crimson attempted 5 shots on Long Beach goalkeeper Nicoline Jorgensen throughout the first half, the 49ers got the score rolling with a shot in the 37th minute off of a corner kick.

Although Harvard picked up the aggression in the second half, taking 14 shots to Long Beach’s one, the 49ers managed another goal with a header from Shawna Golden 10 minutes into the second half.

“We’ve played 4 games and only have got 3 goals, and that’s not going to get it done,” Leone said after the game.

“We’ve really got to get that kind of focus now, because now we are defending very hard, we just need to add that attacking part of the game.”

Defense was key in the game, especially with Long Beach’s unique way of surrounding the goal on all five corner kick oppotunities that they took in the first half.

“I don’t know, I’ve never seen that before,” Harvard goalie Mann said. “I went to get the ball and obviously they can’t stand that close, it’s obstruction. It was difficult.”

With Mann saving four goals throughout the game, Harvard’s defense proved an obstacle for Long Beach State, and hopes to continue to provide a challenge to local rivals Boston College and Boston University next weekend. And now that the Crimson has had its first taste of net in over a week, Harvard hopes to be offensively sound as well.

“We haven’t practiced for a week and a half at least, so we need to get back to improve our technical defending, but the rest of it is starting to come along,” Leone said. “BC and BU are fantastic teams, so we have our hands full, but we’ll give it a go.”

—Staff writer Alex Sopko can be reached at sopko@fas.harvard.edu.