“I thought they’d be a lot better because they’re a Big Ten school,” Kennifer said. “But after being up at the end of the first, I think we had the confidence that we could beat them.”
Michigan State stormed back over the next two periods, taking a 6-4 lead into the fourth. Codini responded for Harvard, as she dominated the final quarter, scoring four unanswered goals to push the Crimson past the Spartans for an 8-7 victory.
On Sunday afternoon, Harvard stayed with No. 9 Indiana (8-3) for most of the match, but the Hoosiers pulled away down the stretch as they posted an 11-3 win.
Indiana jumped out to an early 2-0 lead, but the Crimson was able to force an ejection and capitalize with a Mehaffey goal to cut the margin to one.
Two Hoosier goals in the final 90 seconds of the second quarter put Harvard in a 4-1 halftime hole. But the Crimson stole some of the momentum back from Indiana out of the break on the strength of a Keyser goal that closed the gap to two. Indiana finally was able to put Harvard away, however, scoring the next four goals to go up 8-2 before coasting to the eight goal victory.
“We were all exhausted going into the afternoon,” Kennifer said.