Harvard Women’s Soccer Dominates Possession But Falls Short in Tight Season Opener

With less than nine minutes left in the second half, freshman forward Brooke Huleatt collected the ball on the left wing after exchanging a series of passes with her veteran offensive teammates.

Despite it being her first match at the college level, the Rifton, N.Y., native showed no signs of rookie jitters.

Huleatt drove toward the center of the field, forcing the Stony Brook defender to slowly retreat toward her own net. Utilizing a few stepovers and her speed, Huleatt cut her way to the top left of the penalty box and whipped a strike past the Seawolves’ goalkeeper to tally her first Harvard goal and the Crimson’s first of the season.

Despite returning all but one of the team’s goalscorers from last season, the freshman was a welcome addition to the offensive rotation for a team that found itself on the wrong side of some key low-scoring games last season.

Unfortunately for Harvard (0-1-0), two opposing goals midway through the first half from Stony Brook (2-0-1) proved enough for a 2-1 win for the Seawolves. A sturdy defensive showing consistently turned away the Crimson’s offensive siege in the second half, preventing the home team from securing the opening-day win on Jordan Field.

Harvard overwhelmingly maintained possession and offensive pressure throughout the second half, finishing the game with 25 shots — eight of which were on target — and 17 corner kicks.

The Seawolves, meanwhile, relied on seven crucial saves from their goalkeeper and just four shots on target to secure their second win of the season and their first on the road.

After graduating Rhiannon Stewart ’26, who played every single minute for the past two seasons and earned All-Ivy League Second Team Honors, the Crimson entered the game with questions over which of its four goalkeepers would earn the starting spot.

In her place, sophomore Nicole Bidun, a transfer student-athlete from the University of Georgia, earned the chance to start and play the full game. Bidun is the only goalkeeper on the roster with any collegiate experience, having appeared in four games and registering 111 minutes last season with the Bulldogs after redshirting during her freshman season.

Within its defensive ranks, Harvard paired freshman Claire Kessenger — a United States youth national team and former RCD Espanyol de Barcelona academy player — with experienced senior Amy König. Both were two of three field players to play all 90 minutes, alongside captain Írena Héðinsdóttir Gonzalez.

Head coach Chris Hamblin also leaned on several returning cornerstones of last year’s offense. Senior defender Jasmine Leshnick, who co-led the team in goals last season, shifted between offensive and defensive roles throughout the match, proving essential to maintaining Harvard’s momentum on whatever side of the field she was.

The combination of experience in captain Ólöf Kristinsdóttir and youth in freshman Molly Vana helped to fuel the Crimson’s offense, leading Harvard with four shots apiece and combining for three shots on target.

Stony Brook started its press high up the field, forcing Leshnick — ordinarily classified as a defender — to break through in an offensive role early on.

Three minutes into the match, Leshnick capitalized on a short back pass from an opposing defender and sprinted toward the goal — forcing a save from the Seawolves goalkeeper before the rebound shot broke wide.

Her forward counterpart, Kristinsdóttir, remained dominant in the air to challenge for possession while also tracking back alongside captain forward Anna Rayhill to support Harvard’s defense.

The Crimson stayed defensively solid through the first 15 minutes, preventing Stony Brook from creating dangerous shot attempts while keeping its players on the outskirts of the pitch.

However, in the 16th minute, an unfortunate sequence of events gave the Seawolves their first true scoring opportunity of the game.

A run down the left wing forced a Harvard defender to clear the ball, but the attempt deflected onto the feet of Stony Brook sophomore forward Emily Lemke — whose heel was then clipped as she was searching for her next step.

Lemke, who has already proven herself as an offensive threat this season by scoring two goals in her first two games, converted from the spot.

Roughly four minutes later, the Seawolves were able to make another run past the Crimson’s left defensive side, creating enough space to send a cross into the box. Lemke, soaring above Harvard’s central defenders, found herself wide open and with enough time to slightly redirect the ball to the far post out of Bidun’s reach. The goal gave the University of South Florida transfer and 2025 AAC All-Freshman Team member a brace less than 21 minutes into the match.

The Seawolves jumped to a 2-0 lead from their first two shots on target, a daunting deficit for a Harvard team that managed more than two goals only once last season.

Meanwhile, the Crimson had slowly been accumulating scoring opportunities through several free kicks and corner kicks. The home side soon found several opportunities to play aerial balls upfield to its forwards, but it struggled to maintain possession or otherwise generate the necessary angles to find a shot on target afterward.

For the rest of the half after the second goal, Harvard continued to dominate offensive possession but couldn’t turn the opportunities into productive shots on target.

Stony Brook, meanwhile, relied upon counterattacks for its offensive power — though the Crimson swiftly diffused any successive opportunities. In particular, Harvard’s deep offensive and pressure strength limited the Seawolves from mobilizing through their own half.

Building on a run of possessions maintained by creative and connecting passing sequences, a deep ball to Vana landed at the feet of sophomore midfielder Caroline Studebaker. Breaking through on the right edge of the post, the midfielder attempted to arch a shot to the opposite post, though it sailed above the crossbar for Harvard’s final chance of the half and its best since the opening minutes.

The offensive momentum extended into the early minutes of the second half.

Harvard forced a 10th corner of the game — its third of the minute — as Stony Brook’s defense failed to locate avenues out of its defensive half or was forced into desperate clearances as several of the Crimson’s forwards found themselves in front of the goal.

Despite its superiority in building possession, Harvard had yet to convert on its chances.

Fifteen minutes into the second half, Kristinsdóttir headed a ball over Stony Brook’s defensive line to Vana, whose shot across the goal hit the post. The ball rebounded to Rayhill, who again hit the post, as the ball eventually went out-of-bounds in the resulting skirmish.

In the final third of the game, Kessenger — one of Harvard’s central defenders — began to advance up the field and provided herself as a key anchor for several connecting passing buildups.

Stony Brook seemed to almost accept the onslaught of corner kicks and conceded throw-ins deep in its own half. Defensively hunkered for most of the half, Stony Brook’s biggest chance came off a Harvard corner kick. A goal line clearance from an attempted header quickly escalated into a three-on-three counter-attack on the other side of the field.

Fortunately for Harvard, Vana utilized her pace to follow the play and force a corner, representative of a pattern throughout the game as Harvard’s wing players maneuvered back and forth on the flank.

The consistency within Harvard’s offensive play finally paid off in the passing sequence between Leshnick and Kristinsdóttir, ultimately leading to Huleatt’s dribbling effort to close the deficit to 2-1 with nine minutes remaining.

In one of the final chances of the game, Harvard senior defensive midfielder Susie Long dribbled down the wing and cut inside past the Stony Brook defender on the endline. She located Kristinsdóttir, forcing a save by the opposing goalkeeper, and the subsequent follow-up shot landed wide.

To end the game, Huleatt won a corner kick after driving down the wing with 10 seconds remaining. The inswinging ball was punched out to the top of the box by the Seawolves goalkeeper, landing in the possession of sophomore midfielder Elsa Santos López — but the resulting shot ultimately strayed wide of the left post.

Seeking its first win of the season, Harvard will hope not to repeat its slow start last season, when it uncharacteristically posted a 0-3-2 record. The team had historically started strong in its first five games, accumulating a 15-1-4 record from 2021 to 2024.

After its first losing season since 2006, the Crimson missed out on the Ivy League tournament last season for the first time since the inaugural competition in 2023. Harvard is also seeking a return to the NCAA tournament after qualifying in 2021-2023 and advancing to the second round twice, but failing to qualify in the past two seasons.

The team will seek to build on the growing contributions of its freshman class from its opening game, as it gears up to fight for a return to the Ivy League tournament.

Harvard women’s soccer will continue its home stand at Jordan Field to face the University of Massachusetts (2-0-0) on Monday at 7:00 p.m. EDT.

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