W. Hockey Sends Harvard to Beanpot Finals

It took almost ten minutes to get started, but the No. 5 Harvard women’s hockey team easily caged Northeastern last night at Matthews Arena.

One night after the Crimson men fell to the Huskies in a long, tight battle, the women notched three goals in the first and rolled on from there to win its first round Beanpot contest by a score of 9-1.

While Harvard (14-6-2, 12-1-1 ECAC) advances to the final of the Beanpot next week against BC, who beat BU by a score of 9-1, Northeastern (3-20-2, 2-10-1 Hockey East) will play in the consolation game.

“You can win nine to one and go through the motions,” Harvard coach Katey Stone said, “or you can win nine and one and work on some things. You learn from those things.”

The previous widest margin of victory for the Crimson against its in-town rival was 6-1 during the 1998-1999 season, while the most goals scored was seven, tallied in the same season. Other notable achievements from last night’s matchup include tri-captain Julie Chu moving ahead of Angie Francisco for sixth on the Harvard all-time scoring list.

However, for the first half of the opening period, Northeastern looked like it might be able to keep the matchup close. The Crimson could not manage to score, but still had the Huskies reeling and scrambling all over its defensive zone.

“I think it’s a testament to the pressure Northeastern put on us,” Stone said. “They were ready to go, they were pumped up, and we were a little hazy. Some of us didn’t take care of the puck as much as they could have and things didn’t click.”

Just under ten minutes into the game, sophomore Katie Johnston passed the puck straight across the middle of the offensive zone to a waving Raimondi on the left. Once she got the puck, Raimondi made a quick slap at it and knocked it into the wide open left side of the net.

“Good things happen when you move with the puck and off the puck, and its nice to see [Raimondi] score three goals,” Stone said.

Only 1:55 later, the duo connected again, this time with Raimondi beating Northeastern goalie Marisa Hourihan right under her glove to tally the two goal lead. Later, the same combo added one more short-handed hook-up in the third period to give Raimondi three goals and Johnston three assists on the night. Raimondi now has seven goals for the season.

In goal, junior Ali Boe shut out the Huskies for the first half of the game, stopping 16 shots, and then sophomore Emily Vitt finished off the game with six stops of her own. In the last minute of play, one shot did find its way through Vitt’s legs and into the goal.

Northeastern managed to put a consistent number of shots on the Crimson net despite the lopsided score. Unlike the numerous opportunities right in front of the Huskies’ goal generated by Harvard’s offense, Northeastern was forced to fire long-range prayers at the Crimson netminders. For the game, Harvard totaled 51 shots on Hourihan, who stopped 57 the other night against No. 8 UNH.

“We buckled down and we made sure we did what we had to do in order to win,” tri-captain Nicole Corriero said.

With five minutes left in the first period, on a five-on-three powerplay, Corriero was awarded a penalty shot. After beating Hourihan, but failing to put away the shot, Corriero immediately scored on the two-man advantage by banging home a pass from Chu.

“That was, I guess, redemption,” Corriero said.

Corriero added one more in the final frame for her 39th tally on the year. The other two captains for the Crimson scored as well, Chu with her seventh of the season and fellow tri-captain Kat Sweet with her third.

—Staff writer Gabriel M. Velez can be reached at gmvelez@fas.harvard.edu.