AMHERST, Mass.--All good things must come to an end sooner or later.

Unfortunately for the Harvard women's soccer season, it as the team eliminated by the University of Massachusetts, 3-0, in the opening round of the NCAA tournament yesterday afternoon at Richard F. Garber Field in Amherst, Massachusetts.

The team came out shaky and yielded a pair of bad goals in the first 15 minutes of the match, and the Crimson would never recover. Harvard (9-4-3 overall, 5-0-2 Ivy) generated several good scoring chances in the closing moments of both halves, but Lady Luck wasn't wearing a Crimson-colored jersey in Western Massachusetts.

"I think a lot of the team came out very flat," sophomore Dana Tenser said. "We didn't seem to have what it took, and we didn't put it together."

The opening plays of the game were an omen of things to come, as the Minutewomen (16-5 overall) created a two-on-one break shortly over one minute into the game. Harvard freshman Jessica Henderson broke up the play, but the two-on-one exposed what would be the difference in the game.

UMass fielded a young team, like Harvard, but it has tremendous team speed at every position. The players raced up and down the field very quickly, and they outhustled the Crimson all over, especially early in the game.

And that led to the first goal just 3:18 in.

Harvard had trouble clearing a loose ball out of its own zone, and UMass halfback Heide Kocher got to the loose ball before any Harvard player cold. Kocher centered the orb from the endline to the right of the Harvard net to fullback Amy Powell, who was unmarked to the left of the net, and Powell drilled the ball just past freshman goalie Dana Krein.

"When you have a young team and you're playing against a young team, [getting an early goal] is a big factor," UMass Coach Joe Rudy said.

Harvard almost got the goal back on a gift when UMass goalie Danielle Dion (a freshman, like Krien) misjudged a clearing pass, and the ball bounced off the ground, over her head and off the crossbar. However, Dion's defense cleared out the rebound before any Harvard player could get to it.

While the Crimson continued to press for the equalizer, UMass countered with a play that sent Rachel Leduc on a breakaway. Leduc came up to the top of the 18-yard box and placed a solid shot into the lower left corner at the 14:54 mark to put her squad up by two.

"The first two goals, I thought, were a little soft on our part," Harvard Coach Tim Wheaton said. "But they're a fast team, and they're very talented."

The Crimson was also unlucky, as freshman Emily Stauffer delivered the team's second ball off the crossbar in the half. Her bullet from 25 yards out clanked off the metal 31 minutes into play.

Harvard would outshoot UMass by an 8-6 count in the first 45 minutes, but half of those shots were from long distances, while all six Minutewomen blasts came from within the 18-yard box.

"We started off really kind of shaky and nervous," senior Libby Eynon said. "We just got beaten to the ball early in the game. After a while people started realizing we could play with them."