While there were many highlights in a season as successful as the Crimson's, it was the Princeton and Brown games that will forever stand out in the minds of the three graduating seniors--Noonan, DeLellis and Reena Lawande.

The Brown game was exceptional for obvious reasons, but the Princeton contest was symbolic of the character and progress that the team had made the past four seasons.

Sure, Stauffer was her unusual self, scoring only three goals and assisting on two others. But it was the seniors who stole the show on Seniors' Day, the Crimson's final home game of the season.

Noonan was a dominant force on defense as always, while DeLellis and Lawande each scored a goal in Harvard's 7-0 whitewashing of Princeton.

"I'll remember it forever--it was a great game to go out on," Noonan said.

"It means so much to me to have come four years and to be able to score in my last home game," Lawande said.

Those three seniors stuck with a program that struggled their first two years. In 1992, the team was only 5-8-2 (2-4-1 Ivy), while it improved to 6-7-2 (3-4-0) the following season. Then came the 1994 campaign in which the team was oh-so-close to winning it all, finishing with a 9-4-3 (5-0-2) mark and making the NCAA Tournament.

And this year, the team took that extra step in capturing the title.

The only downside in 1995 was the snub from the NCAA Tournament selection committee. Harvard's non-conference schedule contained more guts than the average senior enrolls in, and the Ivy League competition wasn't as strong as it was a year ago. The team's 3-0 loss to a highly-ranked UConn squad the week before selection sealed its postseason fate.

Such a thing won't happen again, however, since the Ivy League champion has been granted an automatic invitation to the newly-expanded tournament.

And chances are that Harvard will be cashing in on the bid in the fall of 1996. The team is experienced, with a slew of talented returning players who can fill the spots of the graduating seniors.

"I get really excited when I think of how young we are," Chu said. "I just think that we're going to be a team that will be a force in the future."

"Our team, individually and off the field, are just an amazing group of girls," DeLellis said. "We definitely played every game knowing that we left everything on the field."

The results proved it.

Harvard Sports Stats 1995-96