Lions Fall After Gridlocked Second Half

The Columbia field hockey team (8-9, 1-6 Ivy) had a chance to put an exclamation point on a fine season this weekend in Hoboken, N.J. A win over visiting Harvard (6-11, 2-5 Ivy) would have left the Lions over the .500 mark for just the second time in school history. Instead, the defending Ivy champions' 2-1 victory thwarted Columbia's chance for a second conference and ninth overall win of the year.

"It was not necessarily our best game," senior co-captain Diana Day said. "With our best game I think we would have won, but everyone put in a lot of effort. It would have been nice to go out with a win in my last game but it was still a satisfying year."

Harvard scored first in the 14th minute when senior Jane Sackovich found the back of the cage from the left side of the net. Columbia struck back, however, when sophomore Ashley McMasters notched her first career goal just 11 minutes later.

McMasters redirected a shot by junior Kim Branich following a penalty corner for the score. The assist was Branich's fourth of the year, which coupled with her four goals, made the junior the Lions leading scorer on the season.

As the half wound down it looked as if the Lions and Crimson would spend the break knotted at one goal apiece. But with less than a minute to play, Harvard junior Gretchen Fuller broke the tie off a penalty corner.

Down only 2-1 at the intermission, the game was far from over for Columbia. But offense was at a premium in the second half as both teams struggled to produce anything on the attacking end. The two squads combined for just five shots in the second half compared to 13 in the first. The Lions failed to get a single second half shot on goal, making matters easy for Crimson goalie Siobhan Connolly and allowing Harvard to hold on for the 2-1 victory.

"We tried to clean up our play a bit and get some longer possessions in the second half," Day said, "but we never really had a sustained attack. In field hockey you tend to score after you've been in the circle for a while and we weren't really able to do that."

While the loss left the Lions a game under .500 with one fewer Ivy win than in 2004, it was nonetheless a successful season by the team's standards. The squad's eight victories marked the second most in program history and a young team coupled with a number of close conference losses bodes well for 2006.

"It was the best season I've ever been a part of at Columbia," Day said. "This was such a better team, some of the conference games we lost we could have won pretty easily. With all those non-conference wins there should be even more confidence here next season and the team should do very well. This was an extremely high note for me going out on a season that was almost .500."