PRINCETON, N.J.—As if the result of Saturday’s 4-1 defeat to Princeton wasn’t distressing enough for the Harvard field hockey team, junior forward Kate McDavitt took a ball square off the face with five minutes remaining as she approached a Princeton back who was attempting to clear the ball.

McDavitt, who had already fought through an entire academic year and summer’s worth of rehab to be Harvard’s leading scorer this season, shook off the obvious pain and played out the game’s final three minutes true to form.

McDavitt, clutching ice to her sore face after the game, cursed her team’s finish—short of Princeton yet again—and hoped Harvard could still sneak into the NCAA tournament field.

“We’ve been in the same situation the last two years now,” McDavitt said. “We can’t lose any more games now, and we hope that every team that’s supposed to win their conference will.”

A Thin Bubble

The competition for at-large berths to the NCAA tournament appears to be weaker than last year, but stronger than when Harvard made the tournament with a 12-5 overall record and 6-1 Ivy mark two years ago.

This season, eight of the 16 NCAA tournament berths are awarded automatically, while the rest are awarded at-large. As it stands now, at least three of those berths appear destined to be awarded to teams well outside of the nation’s top 16, which means that Harvard would have to finish at least among the nation’s best 13 teams by the NCAA selection’s criteria to have a chance.

Harvard will be in competition for at-large berths with schools from stronger conferences like the ACC, Big Ten, Colonial, and Mid-American, but also against local rivals who beat the Crimson earlier this year. Boston College and Connecticut would fall into the latter category, unless either wins the Big East.

This all means Harvard is far from controlling its own destiny. Even if the Crimson can win out the remainder of its schedule against No. 16 Boston University, Dartmouth and Columbia, a lot of other games have to fall Harvard’s way to gain an NCAA selection this season.

Tigers Go Untamed

On Saturday, Harvard struggled to maintain possession throughout the second half. The Crimson struggled to control the ball, win loose balls and rarely ever managed to connect on its restarts.

Princeton always seemed to have numbers wherever they were needed, whether it was on the attack or while Harvard was trying to win corners in the defensive end.

“Their midfielders overlapped and created a lot of opportunity for them and we got caught in player-down situations,” Harvard coach Sue Caples said. “That was their strength today—where we got outplayed was in the midfield.”

Princeton limited Harvard to just four corners for the game, the Crimson’s lowest total of the season. The Tigers always packed the edge of the circle and swatted away any balls that came in there, rendering that method of attack ineffective.

“We’ve been working on trying to attack the outside and the endline,” Caples said. “We need better balance between the short ball and the big ball and we haven’t been able to manage that yet.”

—Staff writer David R. De Remer can be reached at remer@fas.harvard.edu.