Women's Lacrosse Notches First Ivy Win, 13-9, Over Columbia

After heading into halftime down a single goal, Harvard (2-1, 1-0 Ivy) capitalized on a second period momentum swing to edge Columbia (0-4, 0-1) by four goals, 13-9, and notched its first Ivy League win.

“It’s nice to get an Ivy win,” Harvard coach Lisa Miller said. “They’re all tough–they’re chippy. It gets a little more physical in the Ivy games with the competition, and the rivalries start to build up, so it’s nice to win. I don’t think we played as well as we could have, but you still have to be happy to win.”

Harvard allowed the Lions to increase its lead to 7-5 at the beginning of the second frame, but junior co-captain and midfielder Audrey Todd buried an unassisted goal a few minutes later to narrow the gap with a little under 19 minutes remaining.

“You’re in a tight game on Tuesday, flew down, flew back, lots of exams—the team’s tired,” Miller said. “I knew we would get off to a bit of a slow start, but you hope that pride will kick in and that the competitive nature of the kids will kick in, and that’s what you saw.”

Moments after Todd’s score, sophomore attack Marisa Romeo leveled the scoreboard, 7-7, with the first of her four goals for the game. On the day, Romeo and Todd led the team on offense, tallying six and four points, respectively.

“I think we just have been working really hard at practice, always trying to make space for each other as well as take our own opportunities,” Todd said. “We’re just trying to talk to each other when we see space and work through it, and it’s worked out.”

Going on to outscore Columbia 8-3 in the second frame, the Crimson made up for time lost in the opening period when, after holding a 5-2 lead, the team allowed a four-goal scoring streak that gave the Lions a one-goal advantage into halftime.  A failed stick check on the Crimson erased a goal that would have extended the Harvard lead.

“It’s just one of those games,” Miller said. “If we had gone to 6-2, we would have sort of gone from there and built, but the stick check and the goal being pulled back—it was a momentum swing. It’s a game of momentum.”

Five consecutive unassisted goals catapulted the Crimson into a 10-7 lead heading into the 18th minute of the second period. Freshman midfield Eliza Guild and sophomore attack Megan Hennessey both contributed to the five-goal streak, with Guild chipping in her second goal and Hennessey notching her first point of the game. Hennessey went on to tally an assist to Romeo with less than two minutes remaining and record Harvard’s penultimate goal of the match.

“We started to pump each other up on the field and get really excited because I think we started out a little slow,” Todd said. “We came out ready in the second half, and we pulled it out, which is great.”

Junior co-captain and goalkeeper Kelly Weis record eight saves for the Crimson, and the Harvard defense successfully executed 14-of-15 clears.

“Every Ivy game is always really competitive,” Todd said. “Everyone comes in wanting to win every game. Everyone wants to make the Ivy League tournament. Obviously this is one of those leagues where not everyone in the league gets to play at the end of the season, so it’s always great to pull out a win early.”

—Staff writer Kelley-Guinn McArtor can be reached at kelley.mcartor@thecrimson.com.