Upper Valley soccer fans who watched the Dartmouth women's soccer team beat up on Brown two Saturdays ago probably came away from the game thinking that it would be a pretty good year for the Big Green. After all, the team did shut out Brown in a convincing 4-0 win, and Brown, no slouch, does have a program that boasts an Ivy League record 12 championships.
Less than a week later, casual observers in Orono, Maine and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania who watched the same Big Green squad might have come away from the games with an entirely different perspective on Dartmouth's chances for the year. After all, the team did struggle to put points on the board, traveling almost thirty hours on the bus and only scoring a total of one goal. The University of Maine beat the Big Green 1-0 and the University of Pennsylvania won by a score of 2-1.
Talk to the team itself or Coach Kelly Blasius-Knudsen '91 however, and you will sense neither pessimism nor exhilaration in their attitudes--just a quiet confidence and a carefully controlled excitement about Wednesday's matchup against the University of New Hampshire.
According to Blasius-Knudsen, the real Dartmouth team has yet to step forward.
"The Brown game was not a challenge," she said. "Brown had no enthusiasm, no desire. They let us come at them. Both Maine and Penn pressed us. We weren't prepared for that kind of pressure and they took the ball away from us."
The women are hoping that the UNH game will prove to be indicative of the level the team is really at.
"When we walk out on the field Wednesday night we only have something to prove to ourselves, that we have the mental poise and resilience not to allow our past losses dictate our future performance versus UNH," co-captain Sue Eastman '99 said.
As evidenced by the team's 1-2 record, it is the mental aspect of the game that has been inconsistent for the women at times this season.
Against Brown, the Big Green controlled the ball and the game for nearly thirty minutes of the first half. Katie Roda '00 and company were a constant scoring threat from the right wing, combining with teammates up front for a number of quality shots on the Brown goalkeeper.
With 29 minutes and 30 seconds left in the first half, Dartmouth got on the board when Jen Murray '01 knocked in a loose ball in front of the net with help from April Rasala '99.
Seven minutes and 20 seconds later Betsy Dobbin '98 tucked a Rasala corner kick into the top of the net to make the score 2-0.
Then the Big Green seemed to relax and stopped winning the one-on-one battles for the ball as the first half drew to a close.
Just over two minutes into the second half, Dartmouth got back on track when Rasala scored off of a Dobbin cross, but the resurgence was short lived. The next 30 minutes of action were not dominated by either team.
Dartmouth's Michelyne Pinard '98 triggered her team's final burst of energy when she scored with about 15 minutes left in the game, assisted by Melissa Roth '00. The final minutes of the game were marked by a number of quality chances around the Brown net, but the game ended with the score 4-0.
The shots were 24-3 in favor of Dartmouth. Newcomer Kristin Luckenbill '01 played half the game and made one save, while her counterpart, co-Captain Annie Eckstein '98 had two.
A few days later, in Orono, Dartmouth faced a much more intense opponent in the Maine Black Bears. Despite the lopsided shot statistics which saw the Big Green outshoot their hosts 28-7, Blasius-Knudsen reports that her team did not match the intensity of the Maine squad as they had few scoring chances among those 28 shots.
The story was much the same at Penn, where Dartmouth's game plan called for a greater focus on moving the ball quickly and getting it into the attack they way they did at the beginning of the Brown game.
"The Penn game was the first time we got to work on our zone defensing, and it showed some gaps that we'll be working on in practice," Blasius-Knudsen said.
A lineup that gels in just the right way has yet to be discovered, as a number of players have seen time in the past few games. Neither Luckenbill and Eckstein has been seriously tested in the net, and in the immediate future they will continue to split the time between the pipes.
For now, the team will just concentrate on playing a solid game from start to finish against UNH on Wednesday night. The match, to be played at Souhegan High School in Amherst, NH is being promoted to youth soccer players all across the state.
"It will be a great opportunity for Dartmouth to show New Hampshire how to play great soccer," said Dobbin. "We should be pumped up and roaring to go under the lights and in front of all the fans on Wednesday."
