On Saturday, the women’s soccer team (9-3-2, 3-1-1 Ivy) hosted Harvard (9-4-1, 3-2) on a brisk night at Stevenson-Pincince Field. Though Harvard dominated possession at the beginning of the game, the Bears quickly took over and stonewalled the Crimson, finishing with a win of 1-0.
Bruno came into the week off their first Ivy League loss of the season, while the Crimson entered off a 3-0 win against Yale. Following Saturday’s win, Bruno’s record at home improved to 8-0 this season. The victory propelled the Bears from No. 4 to No. 2 in the conference, passing both Harvard and Dartmouth, with just two regular season games remaining.
The win gave Brown three conference points, bringing its total to 10 — just two behind Columbia, who leads the Ivy League.
“This is the bounceback that we needed,” Head Coach Kia McNeill told The Herald in a post-game interview.
Losing to Dartmouth last week “was a huge motivation for our team,” forward Jael-Marie Guy ’29 told The Herald in a post-game interview. “We wanted to come back with even more fire and momentum and respond in a way that was positive.”
Brown managed to limit Harvard — the league’s highest-scoring team with an average of 2.57 goals per game — to five shots, just two of which were on goal. The Crimson’s first shot did not occur until the match’s 38th minute.
“I don’t think any defense has played (Harvard) the way we did today,” McNeill said. The Crimson “have some special players up top, and we were able to really neutralize them and keep them off the board,” she added.
Midfielder Joy Okonye ’27 led Brown’s defensive attack, initiating numerous tackles and deflections that kept the ball from reaching deep Brown territory.
“Joy is the engine of this team,” McNeill said. “She’s somebody that I think just gives a spark to this team and makes us go.”
Playing all 90 minutes, Okonye was productive on offense as well, recording six shots and assisting Bruno’s sole goal. Throughout the game, she maintained aggressiveness, pushing the ball deep down the sidelines into Crimson territory.
“We know their defense is one of their weaknesses,” Okonye told The Herald in a post-game interview. “So we were just trying to play the wide side more and attack.”
Despite Brown taking eight shots to Harvard’s two, the game remained scoreless until the very end of the first half. In the 45th minute, Guy managed to dribble through multiple Harvard defenders to push the ball from near the right corner spot toward the middle of the field. From there, she zipped a strong left-footed shot past Harvard goalie Olivia Busby into the upper-left corner of the goal. Okonye and Georgia Steinbach ’30 assisted the goal, which earned Bruno a 1-0 lead.
“I knew that as soon as I got the ball, I wanted to go one-v-one and just attack,” Guy said.
The goal was Guy’s fourth of the season and her third in the past three games.
“I just want to continue making an impact for my team and doing what I can, playing my game and just continuing to have fun,” she added. “That’s the biggest part of it.”
Mirroring the first half, Brown’s back line provided scrappy defense after halftime.
Harvard’s Jasmine Leshnick provided her team’s only competitive shot in the 66th minute, when she sent a strike on target. But Bruno goalie Addison Etter ’29 managed to deflect the shot by diving towards the right goal-post.
The Crimson didn’t record another shot on goal during the contest’s remaining 24 minutes. Bruno’s only scare came in the game’s final minute, when a violent collision resulted in a foul and a yellow card called on Brown defender Kyra Treanor ’28.
Off this call, Harvard sent the ball to a cluster of players near the goal. But almost immediately, Crimson midfielder Írena Héðinsdóttir Gonzalez committed a foul and was called for a yellow card. The foul sent the ball back to Brown and virtually ended the game.
With this victory, the Bears continued to prove their season-long ability to recover immediately from losses — they have not once dropped two games in a row.
“We’ve been able to respond really well when things don’t go our way,” Okonye said. “I think it’s just a testament to the team mindset and everything the coach has been telling us, just trusting all the work ethic.”
The Bears will play their final two regular season games with a potential deep playoff run in sight. Brown will play next on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. at home against Cornell (5-6-3, 1-3-1), who currently sits at No. 7 in the Ivy League.
“This was exactly what we needed to continue our momentum and our hunt for the Ivy League Championship,” McNeill said.
