The Harvard women's lacrosse team knows something that Yale does not. It knows that lacrosse is not transitive.

Yale came into yesterday's contest at Ohiri Field having handily defeated the same UNH squad that tripped the Crimson, 8-7, on Saturday.

If we beat UNH and they lost to them, any thinking person knows we'll win this game.

However, the Crimson (4-2 overall, 3-0 Ivy) came to play, jumping out to a commanding 6-1 lead midway through the game courtesy of freshman Sarah Downing's five first-half goals.

"We came out with intensity and fire," junior goaltender Sarah Leary said. "We took them out of their game right from the beginning. They couldn't settle in."

After sloppy play haunted both teams in the opening minutes, the Crimson drew first blood, opening the scoring at the seven-minute mark. After Downing swiftly checked the ball away from an Eli, senior midfielder Tracy Hackeling collected it and sprinted downfield. Hackeling found sophomore Rachel Burke, who went strong to the net and drew a penalty. Harvard went up to stay when Burke converted the penalty shot from the right side, beating Yale goalie Catherine Sharkey.

Okay Yale, play hard. It's only 1-0. We're going to take this game.

The Elis know the heart of the Harvard offense is a sophomore sensation named Liz Berkery, last week's Ivy League Offensive Player of the Week. Although they were obviously looking out for her, they were lucky that she hit the goalposts more often than the net.

Luckily for the Crimson, however, the Sarah Downing show rolled into town. Downing ate the Yale defense up, burning it for the next five Harvard goals. The speedy freshman came to play, running and scoring as often as she liked (or so it seemed).

But coach, I couldn't commit to her because Berkery was open. I know she's good, but she's only a freshman.

"Sarah is very capable," Harvard Coach Carole Kleinfelder said. "She scored something like 65 goals during her senior year at Exeter. She's a time bomb."

It was only with the help of Berkery and Burke and the likes of Sue Carls, Becky Gaffney, Buffy Hansen, and Francie Walton that Downing was so successful. These players unloaded a ton of shots on Sharkey and kept the defense off-balance because their hustle always gave Downing another option--the pass.

We can't win when we're down 6-1 against Harvard at Harvard.

Yale did their best to make it a game in the second half, but they never got closer than four goals. A Berkery goal at 20:25 put the Crimson up 7-1 and it looked like there was icing on a very sweet Ivy cake.

But the Elis climbed back into the contest with two tallies over the next seven minutes. With 10 minutes to go, the score was a fragile 7-3. But Downing and Berkery emphatically shut the door, registering Harvard's eighth and ninth goals within a twenty-second span.