With 9:15 left in the first half of the Harvard field hockey team's 5-1 loss to Boston University last night at Nickerson Field, Terrier forward Jennifer Nixon found herself in a position field hockey players dream about: all alone with the ball with only five feet and a goalie separating her from net.

Nixon dribbled forward a few feet, set the ball and with a swing resembling Nicklaus more than Gretzky, split the pipes.

Game over. With the shot, Nixon scored the Terriers first goal of the game, but, more importantly, she cracked the Crimson's defensive dam and opened her team's offensive floodgates.

"That goal seemed to kill us emotionally," Harvard Coach Sue Caples said. "We seemed to lose our confidence and cave in. It was all down-hill from there."

Indeed. Following Nixon's goal, BU dominated the contest offensively, turning what was a ping-pong game into a night at the bowling alley.

The Terriers scored their second goal of the night minutes after their first, when junior forward Margaret Walsh weaved her way though a forest of Harvard defenders to score with 3:28 left in the half.

BU went into the intermission with a 2-0 lead.

"I was real pleased with the way we played in the first half," Caples said. "Besides those two goals, we played them even most of the way."

"We played OK in the first half, but we let up in the second," Harvard Captain Rachel Burke said. "We just couldn't get them away from the goal."

Like wolves smelling blood, BU made numerous attacks on the Harvard goal in the second half.

"We really made it a point to attack more in the second half," BU Coach Sally Starr said. "We weren't aggressive enough in the first half, so we decided to turn it up a notch."

They didn't just turn it up one notch. They turned it up three.

With 16:36 left, senior back Terri Simonetti scored with assists from

BOSTON UNIVERSITY, 5-1 at Nickerson Field BU  2  3  --  5 Harvard  0  1  --  1

G: BU--Jennifer Nixon (2), Margaret Walsh, Anne Maxwell, Terri Simonetti; Harvard--Sarah Downing. A: BU--Susie Maxwell (2), Nixon, Walsh, Lapointe; Harvard--None.