Women Booters Blow Away Boston College, 5-0

"Somebody's gotta learn how to play in the first ten minutes against you guys," a Boston College assistant coach screamed at Harvard women's soccer coach Bob Scalise, after the Eagles had fallen behind, 2-0, in the first nine minutes of yesterday's game, but had evened up the play by about the 25th minute.

Scalise could only smile and count the Crimson starters who had left the game five minutes earlier to give the reserves some game experience. Seven regulars stood on the Crimson bench.

Boston College would have been lucky if they'd only had to play for ten minutes. Instead, they suffered for the regulation 90, as the Crimson booters strolled to a 5-0 win, raising their record to 6-0.

Scoring Machine

Sue St. Louis provided the Crimson with all the scoring it needed, notching the first two goals of the game, the second one the 60th of her Harvard career, and the Crimson defense played its usual tough game to nail down its fourth shutout in six games.

"It's hard to tell how a team's going to play against us," Scalise, who expected a little bit more from B.C., said afterward. "Some teams come in against the number one team all psyched up and really play well. But in this game we took control right from the start, and after the third goal, I could see in the faces of the B.C. players that they were done."

The Crimson's pregame offensive plan was to punch the ball over the B.C. fullback line, allowing the speedy Harvard forwards to catch up to the ball first and go one-on-one with the goalie. Goal number one, just 3:45 into the game, followed the plan to the letter.

Kelly Gately picked up a loose ball after a B.C. corner kick and raced down the right sideline. The sophomore winger then lofted a beautiful pass into the middle for St. Louis, who didn't break stride until the ball slid past the B.C. goalie, off the left post and into the net.

St. Louis added her team-leading seventh goal of the season at 8:48, after taking a pass from Kerry Bryan and blasting the ball in from just outside the goal area to give Harvard quick 2-0 lead.

The Crimson back-ups entered the game and contained the Eagles well. St. Louis's replacement, Cecile Scoon, broke away from the B.C. defenders and let fly a hard roller that tucked inside the left post to give Harvard a 3-0 advantage at 34:31.

At 8:35 of the second half, freshman back striker Joan Elliott, who had been leading the other Crimson forwards with excellent passes all afternoon, got onto the scoreboard herself, with a chip shot that went up over the B.C. goalie and down into the net.

Last

The Crimson's final goal, at 22:30, came when midfielder-striker Laurie Gregg grabbed a rebound off the right post and popped it into the net, unassisted, to make the score 5-0.

In all, the Crimson booters peppered the B.C. goaltenders with 29 shots, while Crimson netminders Ann Diamond and Dana Warren, sharing the chore as they have for much of the season, had to contend with only nine B.C. drives.

"We played loose," Scalise said. "We were relaxed. We attacked when we wanted. And we got our reserves into the game and they played very well."

After Tuesday's very important win over Brown, 2-1 in overtime, the Crimson could have let down going into the B.C. game. But such was not the case.