Women's soccer feature

Harvey to sit out rest of season

By Scott Bemis
Staff Writer

The USC women's soccer team is off to its best start in history.
At 9-1-1, it is riding a nine-game unbeaten streak, has cracked the top 25 of the SoccerBuzz national poll for the first time this week, beat a good UC Irvine team at the Coliseum on Sunday, and has reason to believe that it can win the Pacific 10 Conference title and make its first-ever postseason appearance.
That's why it was so hard for sophomore forward Isabelle Harvey to step away from that excitement, at least for one season.
"I wanted to be there, because we were winning, and it's cool to be a part of it," Harvey said after she watched from the sidelines as her USC teammates beat Irvine without her, 2-1, on Sunday.
"I would like to play," last year's Pac-10 scoring champ continued. "I would really, really like to play, but I think the decision is for the best."
On Friday, Harvey announced to her teammates at practice that she had decided to delay her comeback until the 1998 season and would apply for a medical redshirt because she did not want to risk further injury to her left knee, which is still not at full strength.
Harvey only played in two games this year, and under NCAA rules, because of her limited action coupled with her knee injury, she can retain a year of eligibility by petitioning for a medical hardship waiver.
"I know how she feels because I went through the same knee surgery two years ago," junior defender Megan Reppe said.
Unbeknownst to Harvey, last year she started and played in all 20 games with a torn left knee ligament. Amazingly, she still set USC season records for goals, assists, points, game-winning goals and multiple-goal games in leading USC to a school-record 15-5 record and a first-ever win over UCLA.
In mid-April 1997, Harvey had surgery to repair the knee and then made what USC trainers called a "remarkable" recovery to where she actually had a chance to play as early as USC's ninth game of this year against Loyola Marymount.
Wearing a knee brace and obviously affected by both it and the injury, the former Canadian youth star played about 30 minutes without taking a shot in USC's 4-1 win over the Lions.
After her performance against Loyola, Harvey and USC Coach Jim Millinder discussed the option of redshirting. Five days later though, in the last game she could play while still retaining the redshirt option, Harvey had a goal and an assist against Northridge, and gave herself and Millinder a lot more to think about.
"We looked at her against Loyola Marymount and she wasn't very good against them," Millinder said. "Against Northridge, she played very well. I think the determination was we don't want to get her reinjured again. Could she help us win the Pac-10 and get over the hump? I don't know, but we left the ultimate decision up to her."
"I played a good game on Wednesday (against Northridge), but I didn't know what I was gonna be like against a really hard team, because Wednesday's game wasn't really hard," Harvey said. "I could play but I wouldn't be at 100 percent. Coming back at 100 percent (next year) would be a lot better than trying to play all the games this year."