Offense Stalls as Crimson Blanked by Bison

The season-long offensive struggles for Harvard field hockey continued yesterday, as the squad fell, 3-0, to Bucknell at home.

With the loss, the Crimson (3-7, 1-2 Ivy) continued a streak of eight straight games without scoring more than two goals. Harvard is 1-7 in that span and has been shut out four times.

The Bison (5-6, 1-0 Patriot) finished off a Harvard weekend sweep, handing the Crimson its second loss in as many days. The Crimson lost to Brown on Saturday in double overtime.

“We really did try to wipe a clean slate [from the Brown game] and just focus on today,” sophomore goalie Cynthia Tassopoulos said. “I think we did a good job of doing that. It was a hard game [Saturday], but we came out here with a positive attitude.”

In spite of the team’s defeat the day prior, Harvard controlled the game early, maintaining much of the possession at the opening.

“First 20 minutes of the game, we played very strong and controlled the game,” Crimson coach Sue Caples said. “The two teams were very evenly matched. I think we complemented each other’s style of play very well.”

But the momentum swung rapidly late in the first half. Bucknell scored twice in a three-minute span—once on a decoy-pass play on a penalty corner that seemed to throw Harvard’s defense off-guard—to open up a two goal lead with a little more than 10 minutes left in the half.

“They have very fast forwards, and sometimes they were just getting in behind us,” Tassopoulos said. “They scored on the corner, which was a good goal, and they scored on an uncontested shot. These are just simple things...that turn into goals, and that’s what shows up on the scoreboard.”

The Crimson was never able to regain the composure it had shown early in the afternoon after giving up the two first-half goals. The team managed eight shots, only one of which was on goal. Of the Bison’s 13 shots, eight were on goal.

“They created some good goal scoring opportunities and capitalized, and we can’t get back on our heels,” Caples said.

In the second half, Bucknell had five of its eight shots on goal and rarely lost possession. Harvard did manage five shots in the half, but all were off-target.

“Something that we have to focus on is [to] keep getting shots and keep getting the ball on the goal,” Tassopoulos said.

Caples emphasized the youth of a team that has struggled all year to score or even take many shots on goal once it has fallen behind. The Crimson has not won a game in which it has trailed this season, though it did come back against Brown on Saturday to force overtime.

“We’re a little bit young, and we have to learn how to respond to being scored against,” the coach said. “We need to be a little bit more mentally tough, and we need to be more disciplined with executing the small details.”

Freshman Rachael Rosenfeld played 57 minutes of the game as a substitute, and of the four substitutes the team used, three were freshmen. Eight underclassmen started the game—four freshmen and four sophomores. Chloe Keating was the only senior to take the field at all yesterday.

Tassopoulos again allowed fewer than five goals, a streak that dates back to late last season. She has played every minute of the season so far.

For the second week in a row, the Crimson played one game at home and one on the road, uncommon for Ivy League scheduling. But Caples noted that the more difficult challenge for the team was the strategic adjustment between opponents.

“[Saturday’s] game was nothing like [yesterday’s] game—different style, tactically, and the game was much different. We’ve had two weeks in a row where we’ve had to change tactically,” she said.

—Staff writer E. Benjamin Samuels can be reached at samuels@college.harvard.edu.