W. Hockey Causes Niagara's Fall

By BRENDA LEE

Contributing WRITER

Even though Niagara entered Sunday’s game against the Harvard women’s hockey team with a national ranking, history remained on the Crimson’s side.

Captain Jamie Hagerman’s short-handed goal in the second period proved to be the game-winner in the Crimson’s 4-2 triumph over No. 6 Niagara on Sunday. Harvard evened its record to 4-4-1 as it continued its history of domination over the Purple Eagles, who dropped to 11-3-0.

Harvard has won all seven meetings between the two teams.

The game-winning goal came as a result of Harvard’s aggressive checking in the neutral zone. Niagara was caught with players too high up, and Hagerman jumped on the puck for a partial breakaway.

“[Junior] Kalen [Ingram], [freshman] Kat [Sweet], and I were pressing the puck really hard,” Hagerman said. “Kat and Kalen were able to push the puck up, and I cut off one of their defenders and went in on the breakaway and scored.”

Earning assists on the goal were Ingram, who assisted on each of Harvard’s four goals, and freshman Nicole Corriero, who scored one goal herself as well as notching two assists in the game.

Hagerman’s goal came in the fourteenth minute of a high-scoring second period, during which five of the six goals of the game were tallied.

The scoring began at 16:01 into the first period when Harvard sophomore Lauren McAuliffe used a power play opportunity to score her second goal of the season.

Harvard worked the puck around, and Hagerman took at shot from the right point, which McAuliffe was able to deflect into the goal.

“She was in the perfect position,” Hagerman said.

Just 18 seconds into the start of the second period, Niagara responded with junior Valerie Hall’s goal, tying the the game at one.

Corriero scored her 10th goal of the season in the eighth minute of the busy second period to give the Crimson the lead for good.

Coming out of the left offensive corner, Corriero dodged the Purple Eagle defense and got a shot off. Ingram and Corriero then pressured the goalie off the rebound, as Corriero scored from her knees.

“It was a great play,” Hagerman said. “She stayed on the puck and worked really hard until it went in.”

Ingram and Louise Chim assisted on the tally that gave Harvard a 2-1 lead. Corriero is by far the Crimson’s most prolific scorer this year, with a team-high 16 points already.

The Crimson struck again after Hagerman’s game-winning goal as freshman Kat Sweet notched her first collegiate goal to push the Harvard lead to 4-1.

As Ingram came around from behind the net, she passed it off to Sweet, who took a shot that was initially stopped. Sweet then gathered the rebound and drove it home for the final Crimson tally.

“It was a great all-around hustle play,” Hagerman said. “She stuck with it the whole time.”

Sweet was recently moved to the first line while Tracy Catlin was put on the second line, a move that Harvard hopes will make a more balanced attack.

“Kat Sweet likes to pass the puck and play with the teammates to get plays going,” Ingram said. “Tracy can pretty much score at will, so putting her on the second line helps them out a lot.”

Niagara cut the lead to two goals when graduate student Amanda Reid scored with less than five minutes remaining in the period, but the remainder of the game was scoreless.

Harvard sophomore goalkeeper Jessica Ruddock made eight saves during the final period, finishing the night with 24. Her Niagara counterpart, senior Tania Pinelli, had 17 saves.

The road victory was especially welcome given the long travel time to and from Niagara to Cambridge.

“In the dressing room, we felt that the ride home would suck if we didn’t go out and win the game,” Ingram said.

Furthermore, the win came after the Crimson played a game against the University of Toronto on Saturday, the fifth consecutive weekend with games on back-to-back days. Last weekend, Harvard was blown out by Providence 6-0 after defeating Brown the previous night.

“We didn’t hold back against Toronto, so it was a good sign that we were reacting better to two-game weekends,” Ingram said.

Harvard has a hectic schedule this week as it hosts three different teams. The Crimson, which moved to No. 9 in the national poll after Sunday’s win, resumes game action tonight when it faces off against crosstown rival Boston College at Bright Hockey Center at 7 p.m. The Crimson refuses to dismiss the matchup after BC took Dartmouth to overtime, ultimately falling 3-2, and tied Princeton 3-3.

“We’re trying to take it one game at a time,” Hagerman said. “[Today] we have BC, and we’re not even looking beyond that at all.”

Harvard then faces No. 4 Northeastern on Friday before ending the week’s action with a rematch against Niagara on Sunday.