Another Week on Top for W. Hockey

The Harvard women’s hockey team heads into its last weekend of play before the holiday break hoping to give coach Katey Stone a particularly meaningful gift—a 10th straight win over her 1989 alma mater New Hampshire.

The No. 4 Wildcats may be the No. 1 Crimson’s most challenging Eastern foe yet. UNH (14-1-1) owns the nation’s longest current winning streak at seven. But the Wildcats have played just four games against nationally-ranked competition and are eager to prove themselves.

“We know that they’re going to be gunning for us this weekend,” said junior co-captain and defenseman Angela Ruggiero.

Harvard (9-1) and UNH have a long-standing rivalry, though the Crimson has held a substantial edge as of late. The Wildcats are 22-9-1 all-time against Harvard, but the nine losses date back consecutively from the 1998-99 season—including the 1999 ECAC championship and national championship games. New UNH coach Brian McCloskey, in his first meeting with Harvard, will hope to reverse that trend.

Though the Wildcats haven’t played much tough competition, they have been deftly handling the opponents they’ve faced. In the first of two matches against Connecticut last weekend, UNH demolished the Huskies 8-0 and followed up with a 2-1 win on Sunday.

UNH has been carried by junior defenseman Kristen Thomas, who leads Hockey East in scoring with three goals and 18 assists this season. This past weekend, Thomas earned a career-high three assists on Saturday and added another assist on the game-winning goal on Sunday. Her efforts won her Hockey East Player of the Week.

Harvard will counter with its own much-decorated skater in captain Jennifer Botterill. Botterill—who on Monday was named ECAC Player of the Week for the third time this season—scored both goals in the Crimson’s 2-1 overtime triumph over No. 6 Providence. Botterill leads the nation in points per game (3.30), goals per game (1.60) and is tied for first in assists per game with Ruggiero (1.70).

Despite sweeping the weekend Providence and Northeastern, Stone said the team felt that it had underachieved. Against the Friars, Harvard led 1-0 for nearly entirety of the game before surrendering a game-tying goal in the final minutes of regulation.

“We all know we can play better than we did,” Stone said.

Ruggiero pinpointed areas to work on, based on last weekend’s failure to win impressively.

“We need to be better on corners, to win 50-50 battles,” Ruggiero said. “We weren’t doing that last weekend.”

Providence’s physical style was well-suited to frustrate Harvard, however. The Crimson will try to leave the Wildcats behind with its speed.

“We need to set the pace of the game and see if [UNH] can stay with us,” Stone added. “We need to dictate play.”

Although thus far the Crimson has maintained its grasp on the No. 1 ranking, Ruggiero said that, judging from the close games this past weekend, teams are viewing Harvard’s lofty status as an incentive to play better.

“Last weekend proved that others will be going harder against us,” Ruggiero said.

Harvard is No. 1 in the nation for a reason. The Crimson is first in the nation in offense (5.9 gpg), defense (1.1 gpg), power play (36.4 percent), penalty kill (97.4 percent) and captains (four). The squad boasts four of the five top-scoring players in the ECAC, with the Olympic trifecta of Botterill, Ruggiero and freshman Julie Chu joined by sophomore forward Nicole Corriero.

UNH has been comparably successful against the competition it has faced thus far. The Wildcats feature three of the top four scorers in Hockey East. Thomas leads the league, but forwards Candy Kaip and Carolyn Gordon also will pose a challenge for the Crimson defense. Gordon leads the nation with four game-winning goals.

After a certain challenge from UNH tonight, the Crimson will take on Maine at 7 p.m. the following night. The Black Bears (3-6-2) are in last place in their league. They are coming off a 3-2 loss to Niagara last Saturday and a 3-3 tie with Yale on Sunday. Harvard has yet to lose in seven all-time meetings against Maine.