But it was the Crimson's inability to clear out effectively after penalty corners that was deadly. Friebe and Meerschwam both pounced on loose balls and made Harvard pay--essentially negating the advantage that Cowan's stellar goalkeeping always gives the Crimson. It was a moment of pure deja vu (ACCENTS) when Meerschwam hit her game-winner, and it contributed to the disbelief that the Crimson would get burned twice.

No less a sage than Roger Kahn says that a sportswriter's greatest enemy is believing that he can predict the future.

Kahn, a native Brooklynite who covered the Dodgers for the New York Herald-Tribune throughout the 1950s, always tried to resist the temptation to make mental assumptions about how a given game would turn out.

I've always tried to put Kahn's credo into practice. But I'm compelled to admit that Saturday I was sure Harvard was going to make good on its best chance for an Ivy title in years.

When Ingram gracefully carried the ball into the circle and lured Baril into no-man's-land before burning her, and when Luskin laid her stick parallel to the ground and made a game-saving stop, I thought the Crimson had things under control. It was getting good breaks and playing solid defense--both essential ingredients to giant-killing.

But Harvard struck out on two occasions, and against a savvy team, one mistake, let alone two, is usually more than enough to write your epitaph.

In my disbelief, I turned to Kahn for consolation. He wrote the Tribune's front-page story on Game Seven of the 1952 World Series, which the Yankees captured at Ebbets Field to win the title--a title even he would admit he thought Brooklyn could win. Kahn led with this: "For the Yankees, every year is next year."

It was in one breath a concession to the perennial success of the team of the decade and a warm allusion to the slogan that animated every fan of its rivals in Flatbush. It was elegant; it betrayed his subtle bias at the same time that it affirmed how unlikely it was that his bias would ever be rewarded.