It's that time of year for the Harvard field hockey team.

No more screwing around. No more games that aren't really important.

It's time to separate the good from the bad and the bad from the ugly.

Harvard (1-0-0 Ivy, 3-3 overall) will cross the Charles over to Boston University (6-3-1) tonight to face the 19th ranked Terriers, who are coming off a Friday night win over 11th ranked Delaware.

Princeton, one of the top Ivy League teams, has already defeated BU 3-1 there, so the game will be a measuring poll for Harvard.

Then, on Saturday the Crimson will duel with Pennsylvania (0-0-1 Ivy, 5-1-1 overall) on the road. If that isn't enough, the game against the 18th seeded Quakers is scheduled to start at 10 a.m.

So don't try and complain about some early morning Chem lectures to these dames. They can't take a nap and go by the lecture notes.

What all this means is that this week will be tough. Damn tough.

So it's good thing for the Crimson that the team seems to be hitting its stride.

After losing three games in a row by a combined score of 3-10, Harvard has defeated Springfield and Cornell 2-1 and 2-0, respectively.

What's more, the Crimson has found a wonderfully effective method of attack. The corner.

Whenever Harvard's offense gets one of these penalty-type shots, it seems to do an effective job of putting them into the net. In its last two victories, three of the Crimson four goals have come off these corners.

To win these games, Harvard will also need its defense to play as well as it has lately.

Captain Megan Colligan has banded with freshmen Eileen Horwath and Sally Romano to do a good job of keeping opposing offenses at bay, while junior goaltender Jessica Milhollin's 12 saves against Cornell certainly didn't hurt.

Ivy Notes: Junior midfielder Carrie Shumway, who has the duty of stopping the ball on corners to set up a big shot, has played well enough to merit notice by the Ivy League, as she was named co-player of the week along with Lisa Rebane of Princeton.

The Rookie of the Week was Amy Yost of Dartmouth, and the Honor Roll included Milhollin among its ranks.

In the Top 20 poll, the only Ivy entrants are Penn at 18th and Princeton at 17th...in other Ivy League action from the past week Dartmouth whumped Yale, 2-0, and Princeton nuked Brown, 4-1.

Crimson Notes: Sophomore Daphne Clark, who takes the shots off the corners, leads the team with four goals...Fellow sophomore Courtenay Benedict has one goal and five assists...Freshman Jen Bowdoin has tallied three goals, all of which have come in Harvard's victories.