STORRS, Conn.—Looking out of place and out of sync, the Harvard field hockey team struggled through a 4-1 defeat at the hands of Connecticut yesterday afternoon at the George J. Sherman Family Sports Complex.

The Crimson (1-2) and the No. 14 Huskies (3-2), who both saw their first game action in more than 10 days, combined for a sloppy first half that ended wth Harvard trailing only 2-1.

Right after the break, though, UConn seized the momentum on junior forward Kelly Stolle’s second goal of the game.

In the 41st minute, sophomore forward Amy Marland hit the ball across the face to Stolle, who redirected it, sending the ball into the top of the net to give the Huskies a 3-1 lead and earn her team-leading fifth goal of the season.

Just over five minutes later, with 23:04 left in the game, Stolle and Marland again combined for a UConn goal.

Breaking through the Harvard defense on the right side, Stolle passed to Marland stationed in front of the net. Marland pushed the ball past the outstretched glove of Harvard sophomore goalie Katie Zacarian to round out the score at 4-1.

“Clearly we have a lot of work to do,” said Harvard Coach Sue Caples. “We are better than this. We didn’t play the way we are capable of playing. We didn’t make decisions that we usually would have. This was extremely disappointing.”

The Huskies broke onto the scoreboard first, just 4:23 into the game.

Freshman midfielder Kirsty Slagter sent a long shot downfield to freshman forward Lauren Henderson, who redirected it into the goal on a beautifully executed play.

“I think we need to work on our communication,” said sophomore forward Mina Pell. “We came out here flat. We’ve just got to get our two-touch game going and not be sitting on our heels watching each other play.”

UConn stretched its lead to 2-0 with Stolle’s first goal of the game with exactly 21:00 remaining in the half. Stolle broke past senior back Katie Turck before depositing the ball in the net on an unassisted goal.

Harvard, though, refused to let the Huskies take total control of the game.

With 18:55 left, senior forwardHeather Hussey took possession on the right side and sent the ball over to Pell, who shot Harvard’s lone goal past junior Maureen Butler to cut the lead in half. Pell has now scored three of Harvard’s four goals this season.

Butler registered 16 saves on the afternoon, as the Crimson outshot UConn 20-10 for the game. In the first half, Harvard’s shot advantage was 14-5. Zacarian posted four saves for Harvard.

“We definitely had our chances, but we had breakdowns,” Caples said. “ We had major meltdowns where we gave up bad goals. This should have been a 2-1 game.”

Harvard also attempted seven penalty corners, compared to only two by the Huskies, but couldn’t capitalize on the advantage.

“We have been working on a lot options for [the penalty corners]. We just need to get some of them down,” said Pell.

The Crimson was taking the field for the first time since a 1-0 loss to New Hampshire on September 9, while the Huskies hadn’t seen action since a 3-1 loss to No. 11 Penn State on September 8.

“Last week was tough, but I really don’t know why we played the way we did.,” Caples said. “We had good workouts Monday and Tuesday and we were back on track. Everyone’s in the same situation.”

Harvard continued to play without both captain Jane Park and sophomore forward Kate McDavitt, the Crimson’s lead returning scorer and a second-team All-Ivy selection last season. McDavitt tallied seven goals and five assists in her rookie campaign.

The Crimson will now look to rebound when it hosts Brown this Saturday in its Ivy League opener. A September 15 matchup against Penn, which would have been the first league game, was postponed due to last week’s terrorist attacks.