Athlete of the Week: Purce Leads Women's Soccer Past Yale

UPDATED: October 6, 2015, at 2:43 p.m.

Sometimes you’re in the right place at the right time. Sometimes the ball will rebound off someone’s foot, and you’ll be the one who happens to touch it last before it goes in the net.

One goal can be lucky. Three in a game seldom is.

Junior forward Midge Purce, the team’s leading scorer a year ago and the focal point of the Crimson’s offensive attack, took a total of five shots in Saturday’s 4-0 win over Yale, sinking three of them in the back of the net, the last of which completed her first career collegiate hat trick.

She netted the ball twice in the opening six minutes of play, with the first tally coming 85 seconds into the game. She capped off the hat trick in the game’s 51st minute to add to the team’s insurmountable lead.

But while Purce was the one who recorded the hat trick, she wasn’t the only one responsible for the explosion on the attack. It was her team that put her in the right position eahc time to be able to finish and pad her box score.

“There are a lot of details and patterns that led up to the goals that people don’t really notice,” Purce said. “Rachel Garcia, her pass went to Bailey [Gary], Bailey’s beautiful ball over, she’s been working on that for so long…. I just happened to be the one to touch it last.”

Despite offensive struggles in nonconference play in the early portion of the team’s campaign, Harvard (4-6-1, 2-0 Ivy) has notched six goals in two all-important conference games in its atempt to bring the Ivy League championship to Cambridge for the thid consecutive year.

Three of those goals came in an offesnive onslaught in the opening sequence of the contest against the Crimson’s arrchrival. Purce and junior defender Bailey Gary notched three goals in the game’s first six minutes. The Crimson’s defense kept the Yale offense in check to move Harvard to 2-0 in Ivy League play. The Crimson has not lost a conference game since Nov. 1 of last season.

“We were very excited about this game and that showed from the moment the game started,” senior midfielder Brooke Dickens said. “We came out and scored three goals really quickly. I think it’s just taking what we do in training every week and working really hard.”

This has not been the first time the Olney, Md. native has had an eye-opening performance. As a freshman, Purce finished the season with 11 goals, tied for first in the Ivy League with Yale’s Melissa Gavin, who at the time was a junior. Last year, Purce followed up the performance with 10 more scores. Currently, she leads the Crimson in goals, totaling five of the team’s 11. The junior forward is ranked fourth among goalscorers in the Ancient Eight as well, trailing leader Dartmouth forward Lucielle Kozlov by four goals.

“Midge is a great player and to see her score three goals like that is just incredible because we know she has it in her,” Dickens said. “She really had a great game. It’s the first Harvard hat trick in a long time. Yesterday was really exciting for a lot of reasons.”

During her first year in Cambridge, Purce received the Ivy League Player of the Year award, becoming the first freshman in the league’s history to win the honor. She also won the Ivy League Rookie of the Year award that season. She has been named to the All-Ivy League First Team in both of her seasons at Harvard.

Purce has played in all but one game during her time college career,, and has been a starter in all but five of these 46 appearances. Needless to say, Purce’s presence on the Crimson ove the past two-plus years has been crucial to the team’s success.

The Crimson is currently tied for first place in the Ivy League with Princeton after this weekend’s victory at Yale, well on its way to three-peat.

“I think it’s [the fact that] the unified 27 of us are all focused with our heads in the game that has made the difference,” Purce said.

Excelling at high levels is nothing new for the Psychology concentrator. Purce has been a member of both the United States U-20 and U-17 National Teams. As a member of the U-17 squad, she won the 2012 CONCACAF Women’s Championship in Guatemala, scoring three goals in the team’s three matches while helping the team qualify for the U-17 Women’s World Cup.