The starter's pistol fired two blanks to open the season for the Harvard women's soccer team--just the way senior goalkeeper Brooke Donahoe likes it.

Donahoe was named Ivy League women's soccer Player of the Week for the first week of Ancient Eight competition. Her shutouts of Columbia (six saves in the 1-0 win) and Maine (20 in the 0-0 draw) sparked the Crimson to a 1-0-1 start and make her the only Ivy keeper not to have been scored upon yet this season.

Her 20 saves against the Black Bears were only three short of her own school record, set last year during a 3-0 loss to Stanford. Another record within Donahoe's reach is most shutouts in a season--nine, set by Tracee Whitley in 1987.

"Some of the saves in the Maine game were really scary, especially the corner kick with 20 seconds to go in the game" Donahoe said, "But I'm very happy to receive the honor...I guess somebody up there likes me."

Neither Crimson team has registered three consecutive shutouts since the women blanked Boston College, Cornell, and Holy Cross in 1990; for Donahoe to trip the troika, she'll have to stop William and Mary this weekend on the road, in her words "a very tough" task.

On the men's side, senior captain Joe Bradley made the Ivy League Honor Roll with a solid performance in the Kenney, Webber and Lowell Cup over the weekend. The Irish midfielder was selected to the all-tournament team on the strength of his good play on both sides of the ball during the Crimson's 2-0 win over Hartford and its 1-0 loss to Vermont.

Sophomore keeper Ned Carlson also currently ranks second in Ivy overall goalkeeping both in save percentage (.875) and goals against average (0.33). As a team, the loss to Vermont was particularly galling. The Crimson dominated much of the play during the first 80 minutes, only to be beaten by a long ball and a nice finish past Carlson.

Speaking of frustration, freshman Kevin Silva, one of the outstanding "Penn Men" (the four freshman sensations recruited from the Keystone state), hit the back of the net three times over the weekend, only to have two of the goals waved off. He scored the game-winner against Hartford on a pretty cross from fellow frosh T.J. Carella, but officiating cost him a second tally in his first collegiate game.

The real controversy, though, came against Vermont. Silva was called offsides on "some ruling I didn't even know about," according to sophomore Chris Wojcik, and a would-be goal was again nullified by the man in black.