Harvard Comes Close to Victory Against Virginia

After Harvard freshman Isabelle Clarke scored her first goal in a Crimson uniform with 7:41 remaining to tie the game, it appeared as if the Harvard women’s lacrosse team was poised to pull off a come-from-behind upset over No. 7 Virginia. But the Crimson’s comeback attempt would be in vain as Harvard fell to the Cavaliers, 19-18, yesterday afternoon at Harvard Stadium.

“We just came out kind of slow and fought back, but we just kind of ran out of time,” junior tri-captain Tyler Petropulos said. “It was a tough one to lose. We keep losing…the big games by one, so it can be frustrating, but at the same time, it’s really positive for the whole program in general, putting Harvard back on the map.”

Junior Jess Halpern scored the first goal of the game, giving the Crimson (4-4, 2-1 Ivy) an early 1-0 lead over Virginia (7-5, 0-4 ACC). Harvard and the Cavaliers traded goals back and forth, with the Crimson claiming a 3-2 lead. But with 19:57 remaining in the first half, Virginia sophomore Annie Thomas scored to knot the score at three.

It would be the last time Harvard would hold the lead.

In just over a minute, the Cavaliers scored four unanswered goals to gain a 7-3 edge.

“They’re very good in transition,” Crimson coach Lisa Miller said. “They got out underneath us a couple of times…We’re just going to have to get better at that.”

A Harvard free-position goal by freshman Chelsey Newman with 8:05 remaining stopped the bleeding. But Virginia responded by scoring two in a row, giving the Cavaliers their largest lead so far in the game.

Virginia and the Crimson would each trade another goal to bring the score up to 10-5 with less than three minutes left to play. Harvard held off a strong offensive push to keep the Cavaliers’ lead at five at the half.

“We knew what we had to do [at halftime,]” Petropulos said. “It was just a matter of doing it.”

Less than two minutes into the second half, the Crimson came out of the locker room strong and quickly cut the lead to four off of VanderMuelen’s goal. After a big save by junior goalie Kerry Clark, the sophomore scored again on a free-position shot to bring the score to 10-7 with 26:08 to go in the game.

But Harvard would struggle to close the gap the rest of the half. Despite goals by Petropulos and Baskind, Virginia would net five more goals to claim its largest lead of the game at 15-9 with less than 15 minutes to go.

In the next five minutes, Halpern would score twice and VanderMuelen would net another, but the Cavaliers added two more to their tally to set the score at 17-12, keeping a five-goal lead with under 10 minutes to play.

But when the Crimson got a second wind, everything seemed to change.

In a little over two minutes, Harvard scored five goals, with Baskind, sophomore Nina Kucharczyk, Halpern, VanderMuelen, and Clarke all contributing to the tally. After trailing nearly all game, the Crimson and Virginia were tied, 17-17, with under eight minutes to go.

“We were doing a nice job of clearing space for each other,” Miller said. “I thought early on we threw some knuckleballs at their keeper…You just have to drop your shoulder and fire the ball at the college level.”

“It was a big team effort,” Tetropulos said. “I think everyone contributed today…You had [Isabelle] Clarke who came in, got some draw controls, [and] had that huge goal to tie the game. It was definitely a team effort, and it was just everyone working together. It was really motivational.”

But the run wouldn’t last.

Juniors Julie Gardner and Josie Owen scored two quick goals to gain the lead back for the Cavaliers.

With less than a minute in the game, Baskind scored to give Harvard some hope. But Virginia won the draw control, and the Crimson failed to regain possession as it ran out of time.

“We fought back, and we tied it up…I just thought we didn’t have a good handle on critical moments in the game,” Miller said. “We needed to either come up with a draw control or we needed a sustained possession.”

Halpern and VanderMuelen led the team with five goals apiece, and Clark recorded 10 saves on the afternoon.