Crimson Soars Past Eagles to Title Game

CHESTNUT HILL, Mass.—As Boston College netminder Lisa Davis worked on a record-setting performance at Conte Forum, the Harvard offensive assault made the goalie look like a jilted lover—susceptible on the rebound.

The No. 3 Crimson (15-2-1) blanked the Eagles (5-11-2) by a score of 4-0 Tuesday night in its Beanpot semifinal victory, relentlessly peppering the junior goaltender with 63 shots on goal.

Though the box score may not show it, the contest was very much a defensive battle, especially in the early portion of the game.

“For people who like goaltending, I think they appreciate what they saw tonight,” said BC coach Tom Mutch.

“I don’t know if that performance has ever been done before…You couldn’t ask anything more from Lisa [Davis],” he added.

Whereas freshman goalie Emily Vitt and the Harvard defense successfully preserved the Crimson shutout on the strength of just eight saves, the losing Davis’ 59 stops ranked third-most in Eagle history.

“I don’t think I was expecting 60 shots,” Davis said. “Fifty shots, maybe, but not 60...I focused on making the first save and trying to eat rebounds because I knew they were going to keep hunting around the net. I just tried to stop everything.”

The swarming Harvard offense capitalized on those few rebounds that Davis missed, successfully pounding the goal and keeping virtually all of the game’s action on the Eagles’ side of the ice.

“We played solid team hockey and put a lot of pressure on B.C. right off the bat and consistently for 60 minutes,” said Crimson coach Katey Stone. “The goaltender played absolutely outstanding. It was just a tremendous effort, and I thought she was fantastic...Clearly she made a difference in the game in many ways.”

Though still blanked by a superior Harvard squad, the Eagles put forth a drastically better showing than the 7-0 blowout when the two teams last met a year ago.

“BC is a heck of a lot better than they were a year ago,” Stone said. “It’s exciting to see because you want these match-ups to be challenging and it certainly was.”

Co-captain forward Lauren McAuliffe found the back of the net first at 17:55, knocking home a deflected slapshot from fellow captain and defender Angela Ruggiero.

Then, in the second period, junior forward Nicole Corriero put home another ricocheted Ruggiero blast for the contest’s second score.

With her two assists, Ruggiero continued her streak of recording a point in every game she has played in this season.

“What I was most pleased with is that we were tenacious, we kept at it the whole time,” Stone added. “It took awhile to score some goals, but we didn’t give up,”

When all was said and done, McAuliffe finished the day with two goals and two assists to her credit, while Corriero contributed an assist and two goals of her own.

“We just had a lot of puck movement,” McAuliffe said. “It seemed like we had so many chances, getting so many shots…We just stuck to the game plan and kept crashing the net hard. Eventually, they started falling.”

The Beanpot Championship game against Northeastern (11-5-7) will be held on Tuesday at 8 p.m.

“We’ll see the same kind of effort [from Huskies’ goalie Chanda Gunn] Tuesday night when we play against Northeastern,” Stone said. “She’ll stand on her head too. We’re expecting that.”

But before that, Harvard will look to wrap-up two in-conference matchups against Colgate and Cornell tomorrow and Saturday, respectively.

—Staff writer John R. Hein can be reached at hein@fas.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Pablo S. Torre can be reached at torre@fas.harvard.edu.