Box Score Bulldogs Eliminated from Postseason in Final Regular Season Game
NEW HAVEN, Conn. - With a spot in the Ivy League Women's Lacrosse Tournament hanging in the balance Saturday afternoon in the regular season finale at Soldiers Field Soccer/Lacrosse Stadium, Harvard utilized a 9-0 run that started midway through the first period to break the game open en route to notching a 15-4 win vs. Yale.
The Crimson led 4-0 at 14:06 of the first half when Yale freshman forward Maggie Pizzo scored the first of her two goals for the day. But after Pizzo's goal the Bulldogs did not score again for nearly 34 minutes. By that time Harvard had built a 13-1 edge, a deficit too big for Yale to overcome. The loss eliminated the Bulldogs from postseason contention.
"Harvard played a great game," said Anne Phillips, Yale's Joel E. Smilow, Class of 1954 Head Coach of Women's Lacrosse. "We could not find our groove on offense, and our defense -- which had played so well all year -- just was not in sync. And the more momentum Harvard got, the more they were able to slow the game down."
The stakes were high for both teams entering the game, as three of the four spots in the Ivy League Tournament -- which takes place next weekend and determines the recipient of the league's automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament -- had already been locked up (No. 10 Princeton had the top seed clinched, and Cornell and No. 14 Penn also had clinched berths). With a 3-3 league record, fourth-place Harvard had a one-game lead on Yale at the start of the day, but the Bulldogs could have tied the Crimson and grabbed the tiebreaker edge by beating them Saturday. Earlier in the season Yale had beaten the only other team that could have finished tied for fourth, Dartmouth.
On a sunny but windy day in Cambridge, the first several minutes of the game proved to be a prelude of what was to come. Yale (7-8, 2-5 Ivy League) was ranked 18th nationally and second in the Ivy League in scoring defense entering the game (8.21 goals allowed per game), but Harvard (8-7, 4-3 Ivy League) scored four times in the opening 12:30. The Crimson used passes to infiltrate Yale's interior defense, and while senior goalkeeper Erin Mullins was able to stop Harvard's first shot -- a point-blank try by midfielder Julia Glynn wide-open in front of the cage -- the Crimson scored on their next one (by Glynn) to take a 1-0 lead at 27:59.
With Harvard claiming four of the first five draw controls, the Yale offense had little chance to build momentum. After Harvard's second goal freshman midfielder Madeleine Gramigna won the draw, but a turnover ended that possession. Harvard goalie Kelly Weis then made a pair of saves on Yale's next possession, and after the second save the Crimson cleared the ball and scored to go ahead 3-0.
After Harvard's fourth goal, at 17:30, the Bulldogs called time. Three of Harvard's first four goals had come off assists, and the Crimson were on their way to an eight-assist day -- the most assists Yale had allowed all year.
Pizzo eventually scored on a free position shot at 14:06 for Yale's first goal, but Weis denied then denied another free position shot that could have pulled the Bulldogs within two. Two Crimson goals in a span of 39 seconds then made the score 6-1.
Harvard took advantage of a pair of Yale turnovers to score two more goals before halftime, heading into the break with an 8-1 advantage. Senior defender Clare Curran kept that deficit from getting any bigger by causing a turnover by the Crimson in the waning seconds of the half.
Any chances of a second-half comeback for Yale dimmed early on. A Bulldog turnover gave Harvard the chance to go up 9-1 at 26:06, and after getting the next draw control the Crimson scored again.
With a comfortable margin, Harvard could afford to be patient on attack while continuously trying to solve the Yale defense. With one of Yale's top defenders -- junior Flannery Carney -- out due to a yellow card later in the half, the Crimson scored their 11th goal and prompted another Yale timeout with 17:39 to play.
Senior midfielder Christina Doherty got the draw control out of that timeout -- one of three on the day for her -- but the Bulldogs turned the ball over again, and Harvard scored to make it 12-1. Harvard then got the draw, worked the clock some more, and scored for a 13-1 advantage. That goal came off Glynn's fifth assist of the day, and she also had a pair of goals herself for a team-best seven points.
Pizzo finally got Yale back on the scoreboard by firing a free position shot high inside the far post with 10:10 to play. After Carney caused a turnover, junior attacker Nicole Daniggelis got a free position attempt. Without even needing to drive, she unleashed a shot that beat Weis to get the Bulldogs within 10. But as was the case all day long, the Crimson kept the pressure on. Harvard got the next draw control and scored just 56 seconds after Daniggelis' goal.
Senior attacker Erin Magnuson provided one last highlight for Yale with 4:15 to play, backing down her defender before firing in a goal. Harvard scored one more time for the 15-4 final, but by then the focus had shifted to honoring the seniors -- Curran, Doherty, Magnuson, Mullins, senior midfielder Cathryn Avallone, senior attacker Kerri Fleishhacker and senior midfielder Emily Rutland. Six of them started, and all seven of them got into the game by the end.
The seniors leave having helped move the program forward; the year before they arrived, the Bulldogs had gone 3-12 overall and 0-7 in the Ivy League. The team's 24 wins in the last three years make this the best three-year stretch since 2007-2009 (29 wins).
"It's a shame the last game was such a disappointment, but that game does not define what this class did for the program," said Phillips. "Every one of those seniors made a great contribution. We hoped they would be the class that would get us into the Ivy League Tournament for the first time, but it was not meant to be."
While saying goodbye to the seniors, the Bulldogs could also begin turning the page to next season knowing that they have some building blocks in place to challenge the league's top teams. Princeton claimed sole possession of the Ivy League Championship with a win vs. Brown Saturday to finish 7-0 in league play, but just three weeks earlier the Tigers very nearly got knocked off by the Bulldogs (a 7-5 Princeton win).
"We return the whole defense except for Clare Curran next year, and a number of this year's freshmen got some experience that will help us in the future," said Phillips. "As disappointing as today was, if we have everybody back and healthy next year we are in a good place."
Report by Sam Rubin '95 (sam.rubin@yale.edu), Yale Sports Publicity
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