By BARBARA R. BARRENO

CONTRIBUTING Writer

The Harvard women’s lacrosse team got off to a brisk start in Wednesday’s game at Connecticut, scoring within the first three minutes of play. The early lead was short-lived, however, as the Crimson fell 15-6 to the Huskies (5-1) to even its record at 2-2.

“It was disappointing because we had a good shot at beating them. We weren’t aggressive,” captain Catherine Sproul said. “Hopefully this is a wake-up call. You have to be on your game, every day.”

After senior midfielder Casey Owens netted the first goal for Harvard, UConn fired back with five unanswered goals of its own.

Victory was not out of the Crimson’s grasp as Sproul and junior midfielder Elaine Belitsos scored to narrow the gap, but Harvard could not rally past the 5-3 deficit. The Huskies’ Dana Stewart and Shannon Burke dismantled an unsynchronized Crimson defense, combining for three more goals to cruise into halftime with an 8-3 lead.

“Each person wasn’t pulling her weight as much as she should have been,” Owens said. “There’s a team responsibility in defense as well as offense.”

Harvard cut into UConn’s lead at the start of the second half, but the relentless Huskies had an answer for each goal the Crimson scored.

After UConn put up another 5-0 scoring run on unassisted goals, Harvard was past the point of recovery, despite a few end-game scores.

Senior attack Molly Bodel also got one in for Harvard to wrap up the game at 15-6. Sproul was the only Crimson player to get two goals in the game, extending her streak of scoring at least one goal in a game to 14.

Harvard had trouble focusing its offense or getting its defense on the same page.

The Crimson struggled to contain Husky offensive threats Dana Stewart and Tracy Mullaney. Stewart tallied four goals, while Mullaney, a preseason All-American, contributed three goals and two assists.

“We were disappointed that our execution of skills was not up to par. We are capable of a lot cleaner passing and catching,” Owens said.

The problems that the Crimson faced started before the team even took the field. Harvard was missing its starting keeper, sophomore Kathryn Tylander, who tore her ACL against No. 13 Syracuse on March 16. Junior Kristin Demorest guarded the net and made seven saves.

“It always throws a team off to change that midway through the season,” Sproul said. “We were all shaken about it.”