In a weekly Back Page series, two of The Crimson's football beat writers give their take on the Harvard football team. The team has its eyes set on the home opener against Brown this Saturday night.
On Conner Hempel’s strong first start as quarterback:
David Steinbach: Conner Hempel was probably envisioning a different beginning to his first career start as quarterback in the season opener against San Diego. Through the first two quarters of play, Hempel had only thrown for 39 yards.
Samantha Lin: But all that changed in the second half. Hempel ended the game with 345 yards in the air and four touchdowns, two to sophomore wideout Andrew Fischer. Hempel definitely didn’t play like it was his first start—I think his teammates and Coach Murphy having confidence in him helped him a ton.
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After spending time behind the Brett Favre that was Colton Chapple, junior quarterback Conner Hempel had his Aaron Rodgers coming out moment this weekend throwing for four scores and over 350 yards against San Diego to earn this week’s top honors as Athlete of the Week. However, given Harvard has the most varsity sports of any school in the country, you can bet your bottom dollar there were other impressive Crimson performances over the past week.
Brandy Machado, Women's Rugby
Women’s rugby began its tenure as Harvard’s newest varsity sport with a hard-fought loss to Quinnipiac. However, Crimson fans will always be appeased by slaughtering our oldest Connecticut-based rival and the team certainly accomplished that. Harvard brought the smackdown to Yale behind a dominant five try performance by senior co-captain Brandy Machado resulting in an emphatic 84-0 victory.
Norman Hayes, Football
Junior defensive back Norman Hayes was all over the field this weekend, logging time throughout the backfield and even playing some snaps at linebacker, as he kept the Torreros’ offense at bay. Hayes finished the game with a total of twelve tackles, including two for a loss, and also grabbed an interception to seal the game late in the fourth quarter.
In a new series, The Crimson will look each weekend at the five best quotes of the week, providing context for the five best moments from the past seven days in Crimson sports.
“It’s been amazing. We’ve heard from generations of Radcliffe alums, other teams, other students who just stopped to say ‘good luck.’ It’s been amazing to have the whole support of the Harvard community behind us. That was a really wonderful thing for us to carry into the game.” -- Xanni Brown ‘14
Women’s rugby – Harvard’s newly added 42nd varsity sport – finally made its home debut under the lights Tuesday night at Cumnock Field. Although the Crimson found itself in a tight game for much of the first half in front of a solid crew of fans, visiting Quinnipiac pulled away in the second frame to deprive Harvard of its first win of the season.
“Coach Murphy, he’s a genius. He has a system in place where we try to match the number of games they play through scrimmages. We try to make our scrimmages game tempo, game environment…. So by the time we get to our first game we’re kind of even keeled almost, not sort of behind them in terms of conditioning or mental toughness.” -- Nnamdi Obukwelu ‘14
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Despite the sweltering heat a few days ago, it seems as if fall is coming early to Boston. Not discouraged by the dwindling temperatures and cooler breezes, Crimson athletes were involved in plenty of action this week, and The Back Page notes a few that put in superlative performances.
Tiffany Lim, Women’s Golf
Princeton lost to Harvard by only one stroke for the Ivy title at the end of last season, so Harvard’s twelve-stroke victory on the Tigers’ home turf is distinctly impressive. That victory came on the back of a monster performance by Tiffany Lim. The junior set the female course record in Springdale, New Jersey, with a six-under par round of 66 on Saturday morning, eventually easing to the individual title by three strokes.
Sarah Finnemore, Women’s Field Hockey
It had been a rough start for Harvard field hockey with two losses to start the season, but that all changed on Friday night when the team put Holy Cross on the business end of a 4-0 drubbing. Freshman Sarah Finnemore sparked the rout for the Crimson, who had been held scoreless in the first half, by opening the scoring in the 51st minute. Three more swift goals followed in the next fifteen minutes with Finnemore adding another goal to give her a brace for the day. The freshman has now scored over half of the team’s goals to this point in the season.
Margaret Purce, Women’s Soccer
Women’s soccer had also failed to win until this Sunday, when the 1-0 scoreline failed to do justice to their dominance over LIU Brooklyn. The Blackbirds did not even get a single shot off in the second half, and the difference was a first half goal from freshman Margaret Purce. The rookie now has two goals for the season and, fresh off playing in the U-17 CONCACAF championships while in high school, will be looking to add to her total in the coming weeks.
