Women's Soccer Draws With Brown, 1-1

Playing in the first of three consecutive weekend away games against Ivy league opponents, the Harvard women’s soccer team found itself locked in a tight battle with Brown on Saturday afternoon in Providence, R.I. Though the Crimson (7-3-3, 2-0-2 Ivy) held a considerable advantage in both possession and shots, it trailed, 1-0, for the majority of the contest after the Bears (7-2-4, 2-1-1) scored an early goal.

In the 89th minute, with the team’s seven game unbeaten streak on the verge of being snapped, Harvard earned a free kick near midfield and poured all of its players into the box in search of the equalizing goal. The long ball first found senior forward Midge Purce at the left edge of the box, and she redirected it with her head toward the face of goal. There, fellow senior attacker Rachel Garcia struck a forceful header into the top left of the net.

With all of the momentum on its side, the Crimson continued to push forward in both periods of overtime, but the Brown defense held to preserve a draw. With the result, Harvard maintained its second place standing in the conference, one point ahead of the third-place Bears. Brown, meanwhile, earned a point to follow its impressive road victory last weekend at Princeton.

“Brown is having a pretty good year, so we knew they were going to be an organized team,” Harvard coach Chris Hamblin said. “I think we played quite well. The goal that they scored was against the run of play, but they’re part of the game. We were obviously creating a lot of chances and I was proud of the way that we came back into the game.”

The Bears’ opening goal came in the 27th minute, when junior forward Mikela Waldman put the team ahead after a scramble in the box. Crimson defenders cleared the ball almost immediately after it crossed the goal line, and the referees deemed it a score for Brown.

From that point on, Harvard remained goalless for the majority of the game despite maintaining a relentless attack on goal. The Crimson held a 19-0 advantage in corner kicks, but the Bears, led by sophomore goalie Christine Etzel’s 14 saves, managed to ward off the Harvard shots.

“We continued to chip away and created a lot of chances,” Hamblin said, “But their goalkeeper had a really strong game.

The Crimson nearly equalized in the 70th minute, but senior midfielder Carly Rotatori’s header hit off the post and went out of bounds. Harvard also had several more shots in the following minutes, but Etzel managed to save these attempts.

In the overtime periods, the frustration from earlier in the game continued, as the Crimson outshot the Bears 5-0 but were unable to score the goal it needed to secure three points.

“We played a good game, but unfortunately, we were scored on in the first half and could not respond for most of the game,” junior defender Marie Becker said. “We were 19-0 on corners and we outshot them. It’s the sort of game we could have won but didn’t, and that’s just how soccer goes sometimes.”

With the final result, Harvard moves to 28-20-4 in the all time series against Brown. It now has three games remaining in the season, all crucial to its chances of winning the Ivy league.

“The mindset is that we absolutely need to win those games,” Becker said. “Right now, Columbia has lost no points, and we’ve lost four. The Ivy league is a place where going 7-0 is unlikely, but we can’t count on them to lose many points. We need to win the next game and if we do that we will be in the best place we can be.”