Down A Player, Harvard Women’s Soccer Ties Penn 3-3 After Three Equalizers

Harvard women’s soccer began its Halloween evening match against Penn with a treat.

After a free kick from the Quakers’ goalie, the Crimson needed just six touches among three players to score its first of the game — its second-earliest goal of the season — less than three minutes in.

But the pendulum swung like a haunted grandfather clock for the rest of the game. Harvard (9-4-2, 3-2-1, Ivy League) took the lead twice more, but Penn (6-5-3, 1-2-3) equalized three times, tying 3-3 on Saturday with one regular season game remaining in Ancient Eight play.

Though the Crimson held a 2-1 advantage at halftime thanks to goals from freshman forward Brooke Huleatt and senior defender Jasmine Leshnick, a red card cited on freshman defender Claire Kessenger left Harvard with only 10 players on the pitch for most of the second half.

Despite the player-down deficit, captain Anna Rayhill extended the lead less than 10 minutes later, but the Quakers responded with their third and final goal as the teams traded streaks of offensive chances to close the game.

After freshman goalie Olivia Busby played the entirety of last week’s loss against Brown, Busby returned to splitting halves in net with sophomore Nicole Bidun — as the pair has largely done since the first two matches of the season. In midfield, Leshnick and sophomore Elsa Santos López consistently made decisive tackles and interceptions that stopped Penn’s breakaway attempts.

With the rest of Saturday’s Ivy League results, four teams still have a chance to claim three of four spots in the Ivy League Tournament. Brown clinched one of the spots with its Saturday win.

The other three teams — Penn, Yale, and Cornell — are eliminated. Harvard currently sits in fourth place, tied with Princeton at 10 points. Brown (10-3-2, 4-1-1) and Columbia (5-6-4, 4-1-1) both have 13 points and lead the standings, followed by Dartmouth’s (10-3-2, 3-2-0) 12.

To clinch a bid, the Crimson need a win over the Lions on Saturday. Though the five teams can all tie at 13 points in one scenario, Harvard can at most secure the second seed due to the resulting tiebreakers — meaning either Brown, Dartmouth, or Columbia will win the top seed and hosting privileges.

In a tie against Columbia, the Crimson would need Brown to at least draw with the Tigers, who Harvard holds a head-to-head advantage over. With a Columbia loss, Harvard needs Brown to win.

“There’s way too much up in the air right now. For us, it’s all about beating Columbia and doing what we can there,” Hamblin said. “We do that, we know we’re in the postseason and in the Ivy League Tournament.”

“That was one of our goals,” he added. “We obviously wanted to host. It looks like that’s unlikely now, so we need to keep pushing, and hopefully we can get ready for Colombia now.”

The Quakers pressured the Crimson’s backline in its first possession, but senior defender Amy König secured the clearance. Penn quickly reconnected; a winning tackle from Santos López led to a long ball from Leshnick down the left wing for Huleatt.

Harvard’s run was called offside, though its passing sequence on the ensuing free kick led to its first goal. Freshman midfielder Lou Ruffien won the ball and found captain Ólöf Kristinsdóttir, who needed just two touches to turn and play it to Huleatt.

The rookie took three touches to run the length of the left wing from midfield, drift inward, and slot the ball back into the left corner for the opening goal. 12 of Harvard’s goals have come in the first 20 minutes, and more than a half have come before halftime.

Offensively, the Crimson seemed comfortable maintaining possession and moving up the field through quick passing sequences between the wings.

“We kept the ball, we moved the ball. We created chances and kept possession, and that’s one of the things that we didn’t do very well against Brown,” Hamblin said. “We wanted to get back in, and we did that very well.”

However, in its biggest chance since the opening minutes, the Quakers equalized just 10 minutes later. While the Crimson worked to build from its defensive third, Penn senior midfielder Magali Capdevila stepped in front of a backward pass to intercept it.

She played the ball to fellow senior forward Abbey Cook, who drove up about a third of the field before firing a bouncing ball toward Harvard’s back post. Busby managed a touch, but the ball ricocheted off her hands, spilling to Capdevila for the rebound and equalizer.

The Crimson continued to dominate possession and switch the play, with Leshnick and Santos López acting as key distributors to Rayhill and Huleatt on the opposite wings, though Penn’s defense got the last word and prevented several shots.

The Quakers — with most of their offense built through transition play — found Cook on its own left wing, but defensive pressure from Harvard’s centerbacks forced her shot over the crossbar.

Leshnick, still a key distributor, was rewarded 30 minutes into the half. Building from a Harvard goal kick, Huleatt drifted back and sent a long ball across the field to Rayhill, who raced down the right wing.

The captain beat two Penn defenders on her way toward the middle, and, despite her shot being blocked, the ball ricocheted back to Leshnick — who stepped up for a powerful follow-through shot that sailed to the bottom right corner to retake the lead.

The Crimson’s lead was tested in the first possession of the second half, as it went down to 10 players after Kessenger received a red card.

“My challenge was that she didn’t dive into the player intentionally. There was a trip. There was contact. She had clear positioning on the ball. She wasn’t behind the attacker,” Hamblin said about his video challenge to the red card. “Players at this level don’t just trip with no contact. That’s not how this works. There was a mechanism there that made her fall, and I think the referee needed to consider that, but he didn’t have the angle on the video replay to make a different decision.”

On the ensuing free kick, a low-driven shot — supplemented by a deflection off the defensive wall — fell to sophomore defender Casey Forman, who slipped through Harvard’s backline and evened the score at 2-2.

While Penn took advantage of a short-sided Crimson with a stretch of possession, Harvard still created several chances, landing balls in the box and utilizing Huleatt’s pace down the wings.

Despite a yellow card against König for a foul to stop a counterattack, the Crimson reclaimed the lead for the third time. After a defensive clearance, Rayhill headed the ball, and several midfielders moved it up the field.

Kristinsdóttir’s through ball was too far for Huleatt to corral, but a Penn defender collected the pass and attempted to clear the ball. Instead of clearing it, the defender blasted the ball at Rayhill, where it ricocheted off Harvard’s captain’s knees and straight into the net.

The Crimson then regained its defensive footing, as its midfielders continued to break up Penn’s counterattacks and defenders cleared further attempts down the right wing.

But Harvard’s defensive stand eventually suffered from a costly mistake. After intercepting a pass on the Crimson’s defensive right wing, the Quakers whipped a ball into the box. Harvard attempted to clear it, but the ball fell to Cook, who tapped it back to her teammate Capdevila for a one-touch finish and her second goal.

The Crimson had the bulk of the possession and offensive chances in the final ten minutes, combining for several opportunities down the wings and a Leshnick shot from just outside the box. Harvard’s defense also held firm, rejecting the Quakers’ attempts in the final minute to find avenues through the opposing backline.

“It’s hard to train this. It’s not something you do very often. The fact we kept the ball, kept it moving through the lines, and still created chances,” Hamblin said. “Not only did we score, we also hit the post, we hit the crossbar, we earned a number of corners, so we didn’t just sit in and defend.”

“I’m really, really proud of that. I don’t think there’s anything I could challenge or question,” Hamblin said. “When you’re down a player, you just ask everyone to go all in, and that’s what we did.”

The Crimson will return home to Jordan Field and celebrate Senior Day during its final conference match of the season against Columbia on Saturday at 6 p.m. EDT, which will kick off simultaneously alongside the other three final conference matches.

After losing 4-0 to Brown in its Ivy League opener, the Lions embarked on a four-game winning streak before tying Princeton on Saturday.

“We’ve got to dust ourselves off, get ourselves back rested and healthy, and then get prepared for Columbia,” Hamblin said. “They’re a very good team and sitting top of the table right now, so we’ve got to beat them to continue our season.”

“I’m just proud of this group, and we’re going to bounce back on Saturday,” he added.

—Staff writer Uy B. Pham can be reached at [email protected] or on Signal at ubp.88. Follow him on X @uybpham.