Women's Hockey Heating Up

After a lukewarm showing against the University of New Hampshire, Harvard's women's hockey team regained its form Sunday against Colby.

The team snapped a two-game losing streak in preparation for tonight's Beanpot championship game at Northeastern.

With the weekend split against Crimson (11-7-1, 4-4-1 ECAC) remains mired in the middle of the ECAC pack, trailing, among others tonight's Beanpot opponent, Northeastern.

In Sunday's 7-3 victory against Colby, Harvard got on the board first with two quick goals. Freshman forward A.J. Mleczko, who leads the team with 29 goals and 17 assists on the year, opened the scoring at 7:08 of the first period when she finished off a feed from sophomore forward Stacy Kellogg (15 goals, 13 assists).

Freshman forward Christa Calagione (six goals, six assists) increased the Crimson lead when she converted a pass from freshman defender Colleen Malek (eight assists) at 8:40. Colby halved the lead with 7:17 remaining in the period and Harvard took a 2-1 lead into the locker room.

Colby knotted it at two at 12:20 of the second period, but the tie was short-lived as the Crimson exploded to regain the two-goal cushion Sophomore defender Holly Leitzes (seven goals, 11 assists) fired home a pass from senior captain Jeoy Alissi (seven goals, 13 assists) at 13:56 and struck again at 15:17, snapping home a Mleczko pass.

After Colby cut the lead to one at 2:54 into the third, Harvard put the game away with three unanswered goals. Mleczko scored from linemate Alissi at 3:06 and added another unassisted goal nine minutes later to complete the hat trick.

Freshman forward Kate Schutt (two goals, three assists) capped the scoring with 3:03 to play when she finished off a pass from senior captain Francie Walton (three goals, 11 assists).

Junior goalie Erin Villiotte (10-7-1 with one shutout, 2.25 GAA) was solid in goal, coming up with 27 saves--17 in the third period.

"We played really, really on Saturday and held UNH to one goal through two periods," Villiotte said. "Sunday, it was a little different. We were out of it. we weren't psyched up. We didn't come out as strong as we should have."

In Saturday's 3-0 loss, Harvard held its own against UNH through the first period as Villiotte made eight of her 25 saves, but broke through at 1:01 of the second period to take the lead. UNH increased its advantage to 2-0 at 14:40 of the third period before closing out the scoring at 17:51.

"We're really psyched up for [to] night's Beanpot," Villiotte said. "Hopefully, we can pick up where we left off last week against Northeastern.

"We definitely have to shoot a lot," she added. "We can skate faster [than Northeastern] and we just have to beat them to the puck. We have to connect a little bit better and just play well."