Vaillancourt’s Pair Propels W. Hockey Into ECAC Final

SCHENECTADY, N.Y.—It began and ended Saturday night for Harvard right in the same place—freshman Sarah Vaillancourt’s stick.

After the 2-1 overtime victory over Yale, Vaillancourt joked about how much better her shot has gotten over the season, but to the Bulldogs it could not have been very funny.

“We practiced so much that you have the time to focus on shooting where you want to shoot,” Vaillancourt said.

Vaillancourt opened the scoring eight minutes into the third period, both creating the opportunity and finishing it on her own. After streaking down the ice and missing her one-on-one chance, she kept her head in the play and put it in after tri-captain Julie Chu poked it over to her on the left.

The goal marked a breakthrough after Vaillancourt had been generating numerous chances for herself and her teammates all game by diving in toward the net and focusing on throwing rebounds back on the net.

“Usually I have a bad habit to keep going instead of stopping in front of the net,” Vaillancourt said. “This time I did and Julie and Nicole worked hard to get the puck back in front and I was standing.”

With just 12 seconds left in the first period, a quick pass from Chu to tri-captain Nicole Corriero and one back to Chu gave Harvard an odd-man rush. Instead of pushing it in, however, Chu left it off to the right for a fast-approaching Vaillancourt who beat one Yale defender with a quick move and then put the ensuing shot on net right into Bulldog Sarah Love’s chest.

Since the Crimson only generated 10 shots in the period—and one other quality chance for a goal—Vaillancourt’s run on Love at the end of the period seemed to give a spark to the Harvard offense into the next period.

In the second frame, a period before scoring the first goal, Vaillancourt used her impressive stick work to generate the Crimson’s best chance of the period. After stealing the puck and gunning down the ice with it, she made an impressive move on Love, but could not quite finish it—an issue that may be only real flaw she has shown all season. Nevertheless, for the day, Vaillancourt finished with 11 shots, including seven in the key final 30 minutes of play. Her chances were the most for any single Harvard player on a day when its offensive opportunities were not coming as often as it would have liked—although many were generated by the great chemistry that has developed between the first line—with Chu and Corriero.

Yesterday, while Corriero might have stepped up into the limelight with her two goals, Vaillancourt was a constant force on the overwhelming Harvard power play and notched an assist and was +2 on the day.

The lone issue with Vaillancourt’s play all weekend was the number of penalties she racked up—which has been the case for most of the season and even before she joined the Crimson.

After Harvard went up 3-1 in the second period of Saturday’s contest, Vaillancourt had three penalties to give Dartmouth a couple of chances to make the game close.

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