The Harvard women’s lacrosse team brought its two-game losing streak to a quick halt, exploding for 18 goals in an 18-8 demolition of visiting Bucknell on Sunday, March 28 at Jordan Field.

The goal tally was the team’s highest since 1996, when it defeated New Hampshire, 24-10.

The Crimson (3-3, 0-1 Ivy) was paced by a huge outburst from junior midfielder Casey Owens, whose four goals and two assists, all in the first half, were instrumental as Harvard built a 9-2 halftime lead that it never came close to relinquishing.

Junior midfielder Elaine Belitsos came off the bench to score five goals and junior attacker Catherine Sproul added five goals and one assist.

“Today we really were crisp with our passes,” Sproul said, “and we didn’t turn the ball over too much, didn’t force too much, waited for the good shot, and just really picked apart their defense.”

“We knew that this game was kind of a gut-check moment in our season,” co-captain Vanessa Lavely said.

“We were 2-3 and any time you start to have a losing record, you’ve got to check in with yourself. We knew that this was a huge game for us. It was tough because usually we have longer than a one-day turnaround between games, so everyone’s legs were pretty tired, but I think we came out really wanting to beat this team. We knew that this was a moment that we really needed to capitalize on.”

Owens started the game by scoring Harvard’s first two goals, and tallies by Jen Brooks and Sproul just minutes later gave the Crimson a commanding 4-0 lead midway through the first half.

The Bison responded with two of the next three goals to cut the deficit to 5-2, but Harvard answered with six goals to take an 11-2 lead early in the second half.

Brooks, coming off a four-goal performance in the Brown loss, finished with two goals.

Thanks to the big lead from start to finish, Crimson Coach Sarah Nelson ’94 was able to give playing time to all 23 players on the roster, and everyone responded.

Freshman midfielder Caroline Hines had a goal and two assists, and sophomore midfielder Livia Carega scored her first goal of the season. Emily Lucas and Margaret Yellott added assists.

“It’s important that you’re not only playing 11 people, because the only way you can get growth as a program is to have people, especially younger players, getting game experience,” Lavely said.

“Practice does so much, but games are really where you learn to deal with different kinds of pressure, and how you get the experience you need to become a better player for the next year. There’s not one person on the team that we don’t trust on the field with the ball, and we’re really lucky to have an extremely deep roster. Our coach does a great job of getting people in and giving them experience.”

Bucknell scored five of the next eight goals after falling behind 11-2 to cut the margin to 14-7, but Harvard never lost control of the game, finishing strong and cruising to the final outcome of 18-8.

It was an important win for a team that had lost three out of four games following the season-opening triumph at UMass.

“Today, I think we played some of the prettiest lacrosse that we’ve played yet,” said Lavely. “We had some great transitions up the field, the offense had a great deal of possession, and the defense was doing a great job holding their attackers off and preventing them from having any good one-on-one looks.”

“It wasn’t just a one-person attack this time,” Lavely added, “and that made a huge difference. It was our whole team really looking to each other, really using each other, creating opportunities on passes. It was a very important game for us. We knew we needed to get this win, and it was great to finish it.”

“I think it’s going to be a great confidence builder,” Sproul said.

BROWN 10, HARVARD 9

A four-goal outburst by Brooks and a pair of late goals from leading scorer Owens couldn’t save the Harvard women’s lacrosse team in its Ivy opener against Brown.

In the end, Brown’s Sarah Passano proved to be too much, scoring three unanswered goals to finish the game and give the Bears (3-1, 1-0 Ivy) a 10-9 victory over the Crimson (2-3, 0-1) on Friday, March 26 at Jordan Field.

Passano had five goals and two assists, capping off the contest with an unassisted tally with just 4:41 to play to give her team the lead to stay.

Harvard’s frantic charge to tie the match came up just short, as Brown goalie Julia Southard stopped a free position shot by freshman attacker Liz Gamble with six seconds remaining to seal the game.

“It’s a very heated rivalry,” Lavely said. “We knew it would be a close game. Passano was one of the players that we wanted to keep our eye on, and she just happened to create a lot of good opportunities. They were doing a pretty good job getting her open, and she was just capitalizing on the opportunities that we let her have.”

The Crimson started the game on the right note thanks to Brooks, who scored the first goal of the game at 26:05 to put Harvard on top. Brooks added two more goals in the first half, then scored the first goal of the second half to give the Crimson a 5-4 advantage. She also added two assists later in the contest, one to sophomore midfielder Casey Orr, who finished the game with two goals.

“She does a lot to settle our attack down and to get us to work strategically,” said Sproul of Brooks. “She has a good calming presence on the field, because she’s very poised and very patient, and she has a lot of experience, since she’s been playing a significant amount since her freshman year.”

“I think that Jen has always been a really strong force on offense, and I think in the Brown game she finally had confidence to just go to the goal,” said Lavely about her co-captain. “She realized that we needed a leader on the offensive end, and she really stepped up in the game and did a great job. She created opportunities for herself and started the game on a positive note for us.”

The Bears answered Brooks’ fourth tally, however, by scoring three of the next four goals in the game to take a 7-6 lead. Then Harvard responded, starting when Brooks assisted freshman midfielder Margaret Yellott to knot the match at seven.

The tie lasted nearly nine minutes, and was finally broken when Owens, who had not scored or assisted any goals during the game, netted two scores in a 32-second span to give the Crimson a 9-7 lead with 8:28 to play.

“Casey Owens is a strong player in the sense that she’s not afraid to take it one-on-one,” Lavely said. “She’s a great ballhandler and just powers through the middle and really found some great open looks at the goal during the game.”

Harvard’s lead was ephemeral. Passano scored three goals in under three minutes to close out the scoring and give Brown the 10-9 win.

“We just did not play the type of lacrosse that we could,” Lavely said.

“As a result, even when we did get up, we couldn’t hold onto it because we were playing a little too frantic and weren’t finishing on our passes, and we weren’t really playing together as a team.”