A Season of Serenity

In early June, this paper will name a team of the year and a player of the year.

Most likely, that team will have won a good number of games and captured a league title or two.

And that player will have garnered many honors.

The team of the year certainly won't have won only three games. And averaged less than a goal per game.

But that's exactly what my choice for that honor--the Harvard field hockey team--did this year.

And that player won't be a freshman goalie who wasn't named to any All-teams.

But Denise Katsias is my choice.

I pick the stickwomen because of their grit and spirit in the face of defeat after defeat. There's something special about a team that plays in the cold and rain in front of 30 spectators, loses, but still manages moments of triumph.

I pick Katsias for her guts. And serenity.

The Crimson did not capture the Ivy title. (It finished tied for second with a middling 2-2-2 league mark.)

And the stickwomen were eliminated from NCAA Tournament contention early in the season--they posted a 0-4-1 record in their first five games.

The closest the Crimson came to national glory was when it dropped a hard-fought contest in the rain to eventual champion Connecticut, 2-0.

The squad scored only 10 goals all year. Three players shared the team scoring lead with two goals each, and you couldn't exactly call Kate Felsen, Gia Barresi and Cindi Ersek top-guns.

Often the team would hardly get a shot off at all. Against New Hampshire, the squad managed but three shots--none of them on goal.

But some of the goals the team did score were magnificent. Probably because they were so rare.

Like the one Felsen pounded in against Springfield to break a 0-0 tie and give the Crimson a stunning 1-0 upset over the nationally-ranked Maroon.

Or the one Linda Runyon tipped in against Cornell with only one second left in double overtime to lift the Crimson to a miraculous 1-0 victory--only its second win in seven games.

Or the one Co-Captain Anne Kelly scored against Boston College to give the Crimson a 1-1 tie with the then 15th ranked Eagles.

Kelly hadn't scored a goal in her four-year Harvard field hockey career.

As for Katsias, she could be magnificent. And awful.

When she snapped, her team snapped. When she stopped everything the opponent flung her way--which she did four times on the year--her team emerged with a tie. Or a rare victory.

In her first two games, Katsias surrendered seven goals. In her last seven, she gave up only six.

Against Connecticut, she stopped 18 shots. And until she allowed a late goal, she kept her team within one goal of the eventual NCAA-champion Huskies. If only for two more saves...

Against Massachusetts, she let a penalty shot slip under her legs and surrendered two other goals. She managed only 11 saves in the Crimson's 3-1 loss, and afterward she felt miserable.

Against New Hampshire, a squad that advanced to the NCAA semifinals, she could not quite reach a penalty shot. And her team fell, 1-0. If only she had reached that shot...

She suffered all the ups and downs--mostly the downs--of her team's season. She took every loss personally. After every goal, she lay on the turf, dispirited.

But always at the end of the game, hot and tired, she took out a pair of glass earrings and put them in her ears. And she smiled.

And in the dim light at the end of every game--every loss, every victory--her earrings seemed to capture the sunlight and glow with her and her team's serenity.