"We're both sort of straightforward and blunt with each other," Montalbano explains. "If I don't like something he's doing, I'll tell him. He does the same to me. We've had a bantering relationship where I don't take any of his crap and he doesn't take mine."

"We both have that brusque, say-what-you-want-I-don't-care attitude," Wheaton agrees.

While Wheaton never allowed his star to move up to the forward line, he never discouraged her from spearheading the Crimson attack with her patented frays upfield from the traditionally stodgy, stay-at-home sweeper position. Still, she rarely violated her defensive philosophy: "The ball can get by you, or the girl can get by you, but they can't both get by you."

The transition from player to assistant coach can be a difficult one, even for a respected team leader like Montalbano. But it is one the anthropology concentrator is looking forward to making--not only because she loves coaching (according to fullback Tory Fair, who co-coaches a local youth team with Montolbano, she takes fierce control of team discipline), but because she wants to be a part of the Crimson when it cops that elusive Ivy championship.

"I can't stop thinking about that corner kick against Brown," says Montalbano, recalling the Ivy-deciding goal by the Bruins in Providence last October. "We came so close. I wanted it so badly..."

Andi Montalbano still wants it. And remember what happens when she wants things.