GAME OF THE YEAR: Women's Hockey 5, Mercyhurst 4 (3 OT)

Two games for the price of one—a phrase familiar in the sports lexicon, but rarely heard in conjunction with college hockey and never on a stage as great as the women’s national quarterfinals.

But that was the treat afforded to the 1,013 paying customers (including Harvard University President Lawrence H. Summers) at the Bright Hockey Center March 19 as No. 4 Harvard (25-6-3) overcame unheralded No. 6 Mercyhurst (28-7-2) by a final score of 5-4 in triple overtime of the Frozen Eight.

As the intensely physical game headed to extra time tied at four, and as the exhaustion of the players and the anxiety of the edge-of-their-seat fans grew exponentially with each passing scoreless moment, the anticipation of a climactic finish heightened as well.

So when junior tri-captain Julie Chu forced home the game-winner with 7:32 left in the third extra session it came on the kind of picturesque 2-on-1 breakaway the nervous crowd had hoped for. Freshman Sarah Vaillancourt slotted a pass ahead to tri-captain Nicole Corriero, who had scored all four of the Crimson’s goals to that point. Charging up the right side, Corriero dished at the last possible second to Chu, who buried the puck top shelf to end the longest game in NCAA tournament history.

“Our conditioning came in as a factor,” Corriero said. “And Julie was able to find that bit of energy and make a sick move.”

“We always say, ‘We’ve got lights on this pond,’” Chu said. “It was two games’ worth of hockey that people really battled out, and hats off to Mercyhurst and our team for being grinders.”

Harvard was forced to erase several deficits throughout regulation, after it fell behind by counts of 2-0 and 3-1 in the early going. Then, after knotting the contest at three, the Crimson fell behind once again, only to tie the score for the second time on a 5-on-3 power play 38 seconds into the third period.

The uphill battle and comeback effort epitomized the perseverance that characterized Harvard’s season. The team, which stood mired at 7-6-1 in early January, had righted the ship and ripped off 19 games without a loss to earn a home match up in the first round of the playoffs. And in the game, facing several deficits, the team­—utilizing the extraordinary and record-setting goal-scoring acumen of Corriero­—managed to rally on each occasion.

“This game was like our season,” Crimson coach Katey Stone said. “We started off shaky and dug ourselves a hole and then we climbed out of it. We were very consistent and then we became attacking.”

Corriero put the team on her back—or better yet, her stick—for 60 minutes, seeming to respond single-handedly to each stubborn Lakers go-ahead score in a scrum at the goal mouth with a goal of her own. To her advantage was Mercyhurst’s rugged, at times violent, checking, which put Corriero and the squad’s top power-play unit on the ice with several good chances to score.

“It’s playoff time, it’s do-or-die, and anything can happen,” Corriero said. “I was facing potentially the last game of my hockey career and you find that inner strength to go that extra bit because you don’t want it to end.”

If regulation belonged to Corriero and the Lakers’ aggressive, net-crashing attack, overtime certainly allowed the two goaltenders to shine. The pair of netminders shattered the record books with their staunchness between the pipes, with Mercyhurst senior Desi Clark and Harvard junior Ali Boe trading game-saving save for game-saving save. When it was all said and done, Clark had racked up a historic 78 stops and Boe had set a new school mark with 56. Boe, after allowing the last of the Lakers’ goals with 4:40 to go in the second, pitched a shutout over the final 77:08 to protect the Crimson’s season.

Although it packed enough scoring and saves, enough thrills and bone-crunching chills, and almost literally enough ice time for two games, Harvard’s NCAA quarterfinal triumph over Mercyhurst was in fact just one game.

The Game of the Year.

—Staff writer Jonathan Lehman can be reached jlehman@fas.harvard.edu.