Harvard On Top of College W. Hockey World

After 25 consecutive victories, the Ivy League title and the ECAC regular season championship, it is time for the No. 1 Harvard women's hockey team to move on to the postseason.

The Crimson (28-1-0, 24-1-1 ECAC) clinched an automatic bid to the American Women's College Hockey Alliance (AWCHA) National Championship Tournament way back on Feb. 21, when it wrapped up the ECAC crown. Harvard and three other teams will meet at the University of Minnesota to decide the national championship Mar. 26 and 27, but in the meantime the Crimson has a chance to win its first-ever ECAC Tournament championship.

Harvard has the top seed in the ECACs and will host No. 8 seed Cornell (15-15-0, 14-12-0), the only unranked team to make the postseason, at 2 p.m. Saturday at Bright Hockey Center. More importantly, however, the rest of the ECAC will battle for the three remaining spots in the AWCHA National Championship.

One of those bids should go to Minnesota (11-2-3). The AWCHA is probably holding its second-annual national championship in Minneapolis to increase its fan base in the Midwest, which is likely to have a women's hockey conference to rival the ECAC in the form of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association next year. And Minnesotans will want to see their Golden Gophers in the national championship.

Minnesota is also the only team outside the ECAC with a legitimate claim to a championship invitation. Ranked No. 3 in U.S. College Hockey Online and No. 4 in USA Today/American Hockey Magazine, the Gophers have only lost to Harvard and No. 2 Brown. They tied No. 3 UNH twice and have victories over No. 5 Northeastern, No. 7 Providence and No. 8 Princeton.

Assuming Minnesota gets invited to the tournament it is hosting, that leaves two spots left for a host of ECAC contenders.

One of those bids will automatically go to the victor of the eight-team ECAC Tournament. But the heavy favorite is Harvard, which is already invited. If the Crimson does make the ECAC championship game, as expected, its opponent in that contest should get a bid regardless of the outcome.

That means the ECAC Tournament will directly affect the championship hopes of powerhouses UNH, Brown and Northeastern. At the same time, recent upstarts Princeton and Dartmouth still have a chance to sneak into Minnesota with a few upsets in the ECACs.

Defending national champion UNH (20-5-5, 19-4-3) won the tiebreaker over Brown for the No. 2 seed and hosts No. 7 seed Princeton (15-13-1, 14-11-1) Sunday. The Wildcats have won four straight, including a 6-1 trouncing of the Tigers, but proved themselves vulnerable to an upset by losing at Dartmouth, 4-3, Feb. 21.

UNH poses a formidable one-two punch in forward Carisa Zaban and defenseman Nicki Luongo, both nominees for the Kazmaier Award, the women's hockey equivalent of the Hobey Baker Award. But Princeton has a Kazmaier nominee of its own in forward Ali Coughlin, who teamed up with linemate Andrea Kilbourne and defenseman Annamarie Holmes for four goals before losing to Harvard in overtime last Saturday.

Princeton narrowly lost to Northeastern the next day, 2-1, when forward Brooke Whitney bailed the Huskies out with a goal with 20 seconds left in regulation. Despite their 6-1 loss at UNH Feb. 26, the Tigers have come on strong and could give the Wildcats a scare in Durham, N.H.

If No. 3 seed Brown (20-4-4, 19-4-3) can survive the first round, it will have the advantage of playing at home for the semifinal and championship games as defending ECAC champion. But the Bears may have drawn the toughest quarterfinal match-up in No. 6 seed Dartmouth (15-8-5, 14-7-5).

This game should be painfully low scoring as both Ivy squads rely on physical defensemen--Brown's Tara Mounsey and Dartmouth's Correne Bredin--to keep the score within reach for their not-so-intimidating offensive teammates. The Big Green has used that strategy to defeat UNH and Providence, tie Northeastern and take Harvard to overtime in four of its last five games.

The fifth of those games, however, was an embarrassing 4-0 loss to Brown, thanks in large part to 30 saves by Bear goaltender Ali Brewer. That was the Kazmaier nominee's 13th shutout of the season and earned her yet another ECAC Goaltender of the Week award. If Brewer is her typically stellar self against the Big Green, the Bears should be able to play at home again in the conference semifinals.

Although it drew the last home playoff game, No. 4 seed Northeastern (24-6-3, 18-4-4) may have the easiest challenger in the first round--No. 5 seed Providence (19-11-3, 15-8-3), which won the tiebreaker over Dartmouth even though the Big Green defeated the Friars, 4-2, last Sunday.

Providence has the best netminder in the country--other than Brown's Brewer--in Kazmaier nominee Sara DeCosta, who managed to hold even Harvard's high-scoring offense, which averages 6.59 goals a game, to five goals Feb. 14. But without a single Friar skater amongst the top 20 scorers in the ECAC, not even DeCosta could keep Providence from losing six of its last 10 games.

Meanwhile, with eight wins in its last 10 games, Northeastern might be the hottest team in the country behind Harvard, which needed overtime to outlast the Huskies, 7-6. With a Kazmaier nominee in forward Hilary Witt and two reliable goaltenders in Erika Silva and Shannon Meyers, Northeastern finished the regular season only one point behind second-place UNH and beat Brown, UNH and Providence in February.

Second-tier teams like Dartmouth, Princeton and Providence probably need to win the ECAC Tournament to have a shot at a trip to Minnesota. But that feat will not be easy, because if any of those teams do manage a first-round upset, the lowest seed to advance will probably have to face Harvard in the semifinals.

If the four favorites advance to the ECAC semifinals, however, the Mar. 20 semifinals should be very intense. UNH, Brown and Northeastern would all have a legitimate chance at the two remaining bids to the national championships. And snapping the nation's longest winning streak with a win over Harvard would probably guarantee a trip to Minnesota. ECAC HOCKEY STANDINGS   ECAC  Overall Team  W  L  T  W  L  T Harvard  24  1  1  28  1  0 B> Brown  19  4  3  20  4  4 NewHampshire  19  4  3  20  5  5 Northeastern  18  4  4  24  6  3 Dartmouth  14  7  5  15  8  5 Providence  15  8  3  19  11  3 Princeton  14  11  1  15  13  1 Cornell  14  12  0  15  15  0 Niagara  9  15  2  11  15  2 St.Lawrence  8  16  2  11  18  2 Maine  7  18  1  13  18  1 BostonCollege  4  20  2  8  22   2 Yale  2  21  3  5  21  3 Colby  0  26  0  0  26  0 NATIONAL CHAMPIONS? U.S. College Hockey Online's women's March 8 poll. Team  Record 1. Harvard (10)  28-1-0 2. Brown  20-4-4 3. Minnesota  16-2-3 4. New Hamp.  20-4-5 5. Northeastern  21-6-3 6. Dartmouth  15-8-5 7. Providence  17-10-3 8. Princeton  15-13-1