The women's field hockey team ended the 1996 season with a second place finish in the ECAC tournament at Orono, Maine last weekend.
While the team had high hopes for winning the tournament, an 11-8 record to end the season is certainly not something to be ashamed of.
"We expected to win the tournament and we didn't, so we didn't really meet our expectations," sophomore forward Judy Collins said.
On Saturday, the women faced off against a decent Cornell squad (8-9) they had just barely beaten in overtime, 3-2, earlier in the season. The result this time was a much more convincing 2-0 spanking, and a bid to the final game against the University of Maine the next day.
"We outplayed [Cornell earlier in the season] and the results didn't show that," Collins said. "So we basically wanted to prove that we could beat them handily--which we did."
If there were any positives to take out of the weekend, it was in the first game against Cornell.
The Crimson has been plagued by inconsistent play throughout the season, but its victory against Cornell was just a good old-fashioned thumping.
"Pretty much the whole season we had trouble holding on to a lead and playing out the whole 70 minutes without letting up and finishing a game knowing we had played to the end," Collins said. "It was 1-0 pretty much the whole game and in the last minutes we scored a second goal just to finish it off. We played strong all the way through and I think that carried into the next game."
The Crimson's momentum, however, was matched stick for stick by a much higher-caliber opponent than Cornell--the University of Maine Black Bears, who entered the game with a fearsome 16-5 record.
Harvard came out blazing in the first half. With just over eighteen minutes remaining in the first half, its prized weapon, Collins, scored on a penalty corner from junior back Beck Springer.
Leading 1-0, the Crimson had only 17 seconds left to claim the ECAC championship and end the season on a high note.
But disaster then struck in the form of Maine's Karen Hebert, who tied the game at one and sent the game into sudden death overtime.
In overtime, the demons the Crimson had supposedly exorcised in its strong showing against Cornell came back to torment it.
Unable to finish the game, the luckless Crimson lost its bid for the championship when Maine's Jeni Turner scored six minutes into overtime.
As a result, the Crimson ended up as a disappointing runner-up in the ECAC tournament.
"We were hoping to start off next season as ECAC champs, but that didn't happen," Collins said. "Everyone was pretty upset about losing, but we had a good season, much better than last year, and I think everyone was happy we improved as much as we did."
While this year's talented team may not have fully met its goals, it has shown that it can play with the best of the nation's field hockey teams. Especially compared to last year's abysmal season, the only direction this team is moving is up.
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