Athlete of the Week: A.J. Mleczko `99

Just by looking at the statistics, co-captain A.J. Mleczko was not at her best in the AWCHA national championship game. For the first time this season, she did not score a single point in regulation and the Alliance was the only organization that did not name her MVP of its All-Tournament Team.

But her performance in crunch time of Harvard's 6-5 overtime victory over UNH in the championship game might have been the most impressive 28:01 of her stellar career.

While her teammates had produced Harvard's five goals during regulation and almost won the game in overtime, it was Mleczko who got the job done when her team needed her most. At 8:01 of the sudden-death period, she raced down the left wing and slipped the puck under the stick of UNH goaltender Alicia Roberts, where Harvard freshman winger Jen Botterill was waiting to slam home the game-winner.

That was Botterill's fourth goal of the weekend and earned her the AWCHA Tournament MVP Award. And all four goals by the ECAC Rookie of the Year came on assists from Mleczko--the ECAC Player of the Year.

Mleczko did everything she physically could to make the championship-winning goal possible--skate and use her stick. That was because she had crashed into the boards with 30 seconds left in the second period, partially separating her shoulder and tearing several shoulder muscles.

She was unable to take face-offs or wind up on her slapshot for the rest of her collegiate career.

But she took a shot to numb the pain before the third period and guided the Crimson (33-1) to its first hockey championship in 10 years. Although her one-point performance in the title game left her two points shy of the single-season scoring record with 37 goals and 77 assists, she left her mark on Harvard hockey as a player who refused to lose.

Mleczko's assist was the culmination of a very successful week that began when she won the Patty Kazmaier Award as the national player of the year. With the Kazmaier Award, the national championship, and the Harvard career scoring record with 257 points, The Crimson's Athlete of the Week will graduate with the title of the greatest player in Harvard women's hockey history.