Dartmouth Holds Off Harvard, 5-3

Wahl's goal brought the Crimson within one in the second half (photo courtesy David Silverman).

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—Dartmouth scored four first-half goals and withstood a rally by the Harvard field hockey team before adding a late goal for a 5-3 win Saturday afternoon on the Crimson’s Senior Day at Jordan Field. Emma Keller, Carly Dickson and Katelin Wahl scored goals for Harvard.

Five different players found the net for Dartmouth (9-7, 4-2 Ivy League), and Virginia Peisch had three assists. Cynthia Tassopoulos made eight saves for the Crimson (5-10, 2-4), while the Big Green’s Jenna Stearns recorded four stops. Harvard’s Pilar Curtis made a defensive save in the first half. Dartmouth outshot Harvard, 18-15, but the Crimson held the edge in penalty corners, 10-8. Crimson seniors Kristin Bannon and Elizabeth Goodman-Bacon were honored in a brief ceremony before their final Ivy League home game.

The action-packed opening half saw Dartmouth outscore Harvard, 4-2, despite a 12-9 edge in shots and an 8-5 penalty-corners advantage for the Crimson. Meghan Everett put the Big Green ahead early, deflecting in a Peisch cross at the 2:32 mark. The Big Green doubled its lead when Kelly Hood scored on a penalty corner, but Keller cut the deficit to 2-1 at 17:59. She banged in the rebound after Pilar Mayora sent in a long ball off the pad of Stearns.

Dartmouth scored twice in three minutes, on goals by Maya Herm and Samantha McPherson, but Dickson got the Crimson back in the game about 10 minutes before halftime. She took a corner insertion from Bannon on the left side of the circle and fired a low shot past Stearns. The goal was part of several minutes of Crimson pressure late in the period, but the Dartmouth defense blocked a number of shots and Stearns made a nice save on a high flick from Dickson off a corner.

The Crimson trimmed its deficit to a single tally more after a penalty corner was awarded about 11 minutes into the second half. Dickson shot toward the goal, and Wahl deflected the ball past Stearns for her first collegiate goal. The Big Green held off more Harvard attacking play until putting the game away in the final minute, when Rebecca Sobel banged in a rebound shot.