Sophomore Kathryn Tylander, the starting goalkeeper for the women’s lacrosse team, walked assisted off Jordan Field with a torn ACL in the final minute of the March 16 game against Syracuse. As she stepped to the sidelines, the Crimson saw both an injured teammate and the shallowness of its roster.

Harvard was left with only one keeper on its lineup but needed to dress out two for games. To exacerbate the Crimson’s personnel problems, its second goalie, junior Kristen Demorest, soon fell ill with bronchitis.

Harvard women’s lacrosse had a void to fill, but the Bright Hockey Center was only a stone’s throw away. This spring, sophomore Caitlyn Cahow is trading ice for astroturf.

Ordinarily a defenseman on the Harvard women’s ice hockey team, Cahow has twice suited up for the lacrosse team, picking up substantial playing time in the team’s last two games.

“We just have been having a hard time with goalies this year. We lost our starting goalie to an ACL in the third game. We had our backup goalie, so she was doing fine, but she got sick last week,” said women’s lacrosse head coach Sarah Nelson. “We knew we had to find somebody.”

When Cahow is on the ice, she is in her element. After beginning the year on offense, Cahow shifted to the back, where she scored one of Harvard’s three goals in Harvard’s loss in the March 27 women’s NCAA championship game. Cahow assisted on Nicole Corriero’s opening goal in Crimson’s 4-1 win in the NCAA semifinals over St. Lawrence and totaled six goals and 29 assists for the 2004-05 season.

Nor is she a stranger to lacrosse, having played at the secondary level at Hotchkiss, though mainly as an attack.

“[Playing college lacrosse] was always something that I’d wanted to do and it was kind of disappointing when I realized that I couldn’t,” Cahow said. “This in itself was a wonderful opportunity.”

All it took was a little serendipity. Cahow heard of the opening through hockey teammates, some of whom live with lacrosse co-captain Kelly Noon.

“We invited her out. She said she’d come, and she did great,” Nelson said. “She practiced with us one day on Friday and did awesome. We actually had to play her on Saturday–not just had to, wanted to.”

Cahow’s first collegiate lacrosse game was a trial by fire. With no game experience and barely any practice, she was Harvard’s sole option at keeper against No. 15 Penn.

Cahow lasted 66 minutes in goal, as the game went into overtime. While the Crimson fell 11-9, Cahow fended off nine shots.

“I was really excited about my performance this weekend. A lot of it was adrenaline I was really excited to be there,” Cahow said.

While a more subdued showing against New Hampshire (1 save, 7 goals allowed in 16:11) doesn’t attest to it as well, what works on the rink can work on the lacrosse field.

“She’s very athletic and she has great hand eye coordination,” lacrosse co-captain Catherine Sproul said. “She’s a hockey player, so she’s not afraid of the ball.”