Field Hockey: No. 2 Northwestern defeats No. 9 Harvard 3-2, notches another top ten win

It was a close one, but it’s still another win in the books.

After mounting a successful comeback against No. 16 Princeton two weeks ago, No. 2 Northwestern faced another tough Ivy League opponent in No. 9 Harvard. Although the Wildcats led comfortably for nearly half the game and came out with a 3-2 win, the Crimson still held its on in a match that could have gone the other way.

“We knew that Harvard was [ranked ninth] in RPI, but I feel like they are a top-five team,” Northwestern head coach Tracey Fuchs said. “[So I’m] glad that we were able to put some on the board.”

NU came away with the lead early after sophomore Olivia Bent-Cole scored off a pass from sophomore Ashley Sessa two minutes into the game. Bent-Cole exited the Wildcats’ October 6 matchup against Penn State with an apparent knee injury, but she said she had a “quick turnaround” and recovered quickly enough to start during Sunday’s match.

However, Northwestern’s lead did not last long. Just 61 seconds after Bent-Cole notched a goal, Harvard’s Kate Oliver made a stretch pass from the backfield that landed in front of her teammate Sage Pierkarski’s stick. Pierkarski had no Northwestern defenders in front of her and beat out NU goalie Annabel Skubisz to score the equalizer.

“I think [Harvard] just got in behind our left back, who was kind of ball watching,” Fuchs said of Harvard’s opening goal. “[The play was] really fast, so usually it’s stopped before that, but I think it went through a player. So we’ll clean that up. We play really high up on the field, trusting Skubisz and trusting that our backs are gonna be able to get back, but she just snuck in behind us there.”

Harvard got past Skubisz a second time later in the quarter off a shot from Lara Beekhuis, but after an official review, the play was declared not a goal because the ball hit the back of Beekhuis’s stick. Later, NU tried to retake the lead with five penalty corner attempts at the end of the first quarter, but could not convert.

The game was tied for most of the first half, but with four minutes left in the second quarter, Sessa put Northwestern up with yet another highlight reel goal — she got the ball around a Harvard defender and flicked it into the goal while running at a 45-degree angle. Less than a minute later, Sessa attempted yet another trick shot by trying to hit a ball into goal mid-air, but that didn’t go in.

In the third quarter, Sessa’s Olympic teammate and graduate student Maddie Zimmer scored a flashy goal of her own, sprinting from midfield and blasting a shot from the goalline up past Harvard goalie Tessa Shahbo to give Northwestern a 3-1 lead.

“The goalkeeper and the players in front, you just don’t know where they’re are going,” Fuchs said of Sessa and Zimmer. “Usually I don’t give them the green light from [those angles] but both of those guys have the green light to shoot from wherever they are.”

Harvard once again tightened things up in the fourth quarter. Twelve minutes in, Shahbo was taken out of goal so that the Crimson could be a player up, and they took advantage as Beekhuis scored a goal to make the score 3-2. Harvard dominated possession for the last few minutes of the game, but couldn’t create chances. In the end, Northwestern came away with the victory.

NU’s win was the team’s fifth of the season against a top ten team (based on its opponent’s ranking when they played each other). The Wildcats also improved to a 13-0 record and are one game away from tying their best start ever during the 1985 season when they began 14-0.

“We’re just really hungry,” Bent-Cole said. “We’re hungry to make it to the national championship again and win this time. I think that’s a main goal for everyone, but…we have to win every single one of our games. We have to do well in the Big Ten tournament and we have to do well in the NCAA tournament. [Our mentality is] looking in the future but not taking any game for granted.”

The Wildcats are at home again this upcoming week, playing Stanford on Friday and UC Davis on October 20.