W. Hockey Splits Weekend Games

The Harvard women’s hockey team opened its Thanksgiving weekend with a much-needed 4-2 victory over No. 3 Brown on Saturday. After the game, Harvard Coach Katey Stone said that it was important for the Crimson to prove that it was a two-game-in-a-weekend team with a strong showing against Providence the next day.

But with yesterday’s 6-0 loss to the Friars, Harvard will have to wait a few more weekends for another chance to prove itself.

“The team you saw today wasn’t the team that was here yesterday,” said junior captain Jamie Hagerman following the defeat. “I wish we could have brought that [team] today to show them that that wasn’t Harvard hockey, that this was a little bit of a deviant from what we usually play. We didn’t bring the same intensity and we weren’t as determined as we could have been.”

Harvard’s next game is an exhibition at Toronto on Saturday. The Crimson’s next official game is Sunday afternoon at No. 8 Niagara.

Purple Eagle Coach Margot Page, whose team split two games at Northeastern this weekend, didn’t know what to make of the recent Crimson results.

“You don’t know what kind of a team you’re going to have with Harvard,” Page said. “But they’ve got some high-end players that can put the puck in the net, so it’s going to be a real treat trying to work on the defensive zone again.”

Providence 6, Harvard 0

The Friars began its offensive drive in the opening minutes, capitalizing on a Harvard penalty to score at 3:45 of the first period. Junior Melanie Ruzzi passed to captain Kim Mathias, whose shot was blocked by sophomore goaltender Jessica Ruddock. Freshman Carrie Holldorf picked up the rebound and sent the ball past Ruddock for the first of her two goals in the game.

“We didn’t play good defense in front of our net at all,” Stone said. “They were wide open waiting for a loose puck all the time. It’s just one of those days.”

Providence continued its dominance, keeping the puck in the Harvard defensive zone. Sophomores Meredith Roth and Sarah Youlen added goals in the first, sending the Friars into the intermission with a 3-0 lead.

“They’re strong,” Stone said. “They run some good screens, a lot of interference. We just didn’t put the pucks in the right spots.”

Harvard’s game perked up in the second period, when the Crimson put eight shots on net. The Crimson mustedred only two shots in the other periods. But despite a more balanced game, the Friars continued to dance in the Crimson zone, blocking Harvard’s attempts to clear the puck.

Senior Jackie Tamsin scored her first goal of the season at 14:03 to give Providence a 4-0 advantage.

“Everything starts from the defensive zone,” Hagerman said. “So if we get frustrated and we can’t get the puck out of the defensive zone, that’s going to tire us out and that’s going to use up the energy and the legs that we need in order to generate offense.”

Providence tallied two more goals in the third period from junior assistant captain Jenn Butsch and Holldorf for a final score of 6-0. The Crimson finished with 12 shots on goal while the Friars had 34, leaving Ruddock with 28 saves for the day.

The Friars ended a five-game winless streak with the shutout victory.

The Crimson is not a team accustomed to being shutout; the last time Harvard finished scoreless was Feb. 6, 2000—to Providence.

Harvard 4, No. 3 Brown 2

The Bears came into Saturday’s game expecting an easier game than in their tie against No. 1 Minnesota-Duluth last weekend.

Instead, Brown blew a 2-1 first period lead just as it had two weeks ago against No. 2 Dartmouth.

Goals from Harvard juniors Tracy Catlin and Pamela Van Reesema gave Harvard the lead in the second, and a goal from Nicole Corriero that deflected in off of her head iced the game in the third.

Brown Coach Digit Murphy called the final result unacceptable in terms of consistency coming off last weekend’s performance against UMD.

“We need to learn to play our game and not to the opponent’s level, and that’s the biggest thing,” Murphy said. “I take nothing away from [Harvard]. Those kids definitely outworked us today.”

Despite its short roster, Harvard had no doubt it could compete with Brown based on its results against Dartmouth, Minnesota-Duluth and Minnesota earlier in the season.

It just took the Crimson a little experience to finally come through with a win.

“It’s nice if everybody walks into the door thinking they’re going to walk on us, because it’s not going to happen,” Stone said. “We’ve got competitors.”

“We can compete with any of these teams,” said junior center Kalen Ingram, who earned her team-leading seventh assist on Corriero’s goal. “We competed last weekend, but we just came a little short. I think we learned our lesson.”

The Crimson began its comeback at 3:53 when Catlin found the net after bringing the puck up the right side past the blueline and unleashing a high shot over the shoulder of Brown goaltender Pam Dreyer.

It was Catlin’s fourth goal of the season. She had also scored a game-tying goal on a similar individual effort against Dartmouth two weeks ago.

Harvard went up 3-2 at the 12:25 mark when Van Reesema hit the near-side high corner of the net from the left point. Her goal was set up as Corriero and freshman winger Katherine Sweet—now on the top line with Corriero and Ingram—worked the puck back around to Van Reesema after the frontliners had brought the puck up ice.

The Bears outshot the Crimson 24-13 in the first two periods and 30-18 for the game, but Harvard made enough intelligent defensive plays in front of the net and Ruddock made big saves down the stretch to keep Harvard ahead.

The most dramatic of those saves came towards the end of the second, when Brown center Katie Lafleur came down on a breakaway, and Ruddock came out to challenge her. In too close, Lafleur dropped the puck to junior winger Kate Kenny right behind her. But Ruddock fell back, spread her legs around the puck, and made it impossible for Kenny to stuff it through.

Ruddock had struggled in the first period, opening up her five-hole to speedy Brown defenseman Krissy McManus on the Bears’ first goal and leaving an easy rebound for Brown winger Meredith Ostrander to cash in on for the second goal, but she played well enough overall to get the win.

“Our goaltender started out a little unsettled, and she really got into the game and made a really big difference for us particularly at the end of the second period,” Stone said.

The scariest moment of the first period came at the midpoint when Ingram crashed head-first into the boards and was down on the ice for five minutes. But she was ruled ready to play before the end of the second period and assisted on Harvard’s fourth goal.

The Crimson netted that insurance goal 8:37 into the third in transition, as Sweet got the puck to Ingram down the left side boards. Seeing Corriero in front of the net, Ingram took a chance and fired the puck on net. Her shot bounced off Dreyer, deflected off Corriero’s head at the top of the crease and bounced into the net.

“I was just going hard to the net, with my stick on my ice,” said Corriero, who was second nationally only to Dartmouth’s Carly Haggard in goals-per-game going into weekend. “The Brown girl was on me really tight, so I knew if I was going to get the puck it wasn’t going to pretty. So I just threw my whole body at the net, and the puck tipped off my head.”

Corriero also assisted on Harvard’s first goal, when she skated into the zone, and passed back. The puck came to perfect dead stop for sophomore Lauren McAuliffe, who one-timed it into the net.

In the third period, Brown was limited to six shots on goal and fewer scoring chances as Harvard added an extra third player in back.

Brown made a few late rushes to the net, but could not capitalize. Hagerman took two tries at an empty-netter from beyond half ice, but each time her shot deflected off the left post.

There would be no collapse for Harvard this time in the third period, unlike last weekend, when the Crimson gave up three goals in the final five minutes to fall to Minnesota.

“We just kept getting better [today] as the game went on,” Ingram said. “In the past weekend we sort of faded in the third period, but this game, we were like, ‘This is it, this is the third period and we’re going to come out stronger then ever.’ And that was the difference—our third period.”