Seniors Make Final Stand

For three years, members of the Harvard women’s hockey team’s Class of 2006 played integral parts on units that reached the NCAA finals. This season, the trio—Carrie Schroyer, Jennifer Raimondi, and Ali Boe—has risen to fill leadership positions, serving as the squad’s captain, its best offensive player, and its best defensive player, respectively. Friday night, all three wrapped up their college careers, turning in typically solid performances in a 3-1 loss to top-seeded New Hampshire in the national quarterfinals.

Raimondi assisted on the team’s lone score and Boe kept it in the game for the duration, while all three provided an example of resilience and graciousness for the rest of the Crimson to follow.

“They did a great job,” Harvard coach Katey Stone said. “I’m really proud of them. They are the consummate Harvard hockey player. They come to play every day like a professional. They are team-first all the time and we’re going to miss them.”

Raimondi, with a helper on freshman Sarah Wilson’s third-period strike, moved into 14th place on the all-time Harvard scoring charts with 105 points. A first-team ECAC selection, she was the Crimson’s offensive catalyst in her senior campaign.

Boe made 35 saves on the Wildcats, including several on open looks from the doorstep. Twice, she stuffed Jennifer Hitchcock with blocker saves from point-blank range and throughout the latter stages of the game she repelled a withering attack to keep the deficit at three. All season long, Boe was forced to excuse an inexperienced defensive corps that hampered her statistical line, but, as always, she played her best in Harvard’s biggest games. Her 17 career shutouts are a school record.

Schroyer, the team’s solo captain, anchored the dangerous second line and became the vocal leader in the locker room.

The seniors struggled with the demands of the transitional Olympic year, but felt confident that the team they left behind is poised to do big things next season.

“Looking back, everyone has a lot of positive things to take out of it,” Boe said. “As a senior class, we’re extremely happy with the way the season went and for everyone else, they have a lot to look forward to next year and we wish them all the best.”

POWER AID

As expected, the success of the top-ranked New Hampshire power play was a key to Friday night’s playoff clash. The Wildcats converted their first two man-advantage chances en route to an early 3-0 lead. With the deadly combination of Hitchcock working down low, Sam Faber shuttling pucks from behind the net, and defender Martine Garland ripping slapshots from the point, UNH got the better of the Harvard penalty kill twice in three total chances, despite the Crimson’s specific strategies to stop it.

“Their power play was significant,” Stone said. “And that kind of hurt because I thought we came out pretty well and we contained them and neutralized their speed.”

The Harvard power play, at the same time, struggled to generate any offense on its own extra-skater opportunities. In its first three lifeless power plays, the Crimson was unable to hold the zone against fierce pressure from the Wildcats kill and failed to test New Hampshire netminder Melissa Bourdon with any tough chances until Wilson’s wrister beat her five-hole.

“As good as we’ve been on power play,” Wildcats coach Brian McCloskey said, was “our penalty kill, I don’t know if anybody’s been better than us. We make it hard for teams to get in the neutral zone. We’re aggressive.”

THE REST OF THE FIELD

The teams are set for the Frozen Four in Minneapolis next weekend, the first to exclude Harvard in four years. Fellow Ancient Eight team Princeton fell to Minnesota on Friday night, 4-0, in a game marred by a rare brawl with 38 seconds left. The win allows the Golden Gophers to advance to its first straight Frozen Four and keeps their bid for a three-peat alive.

On Saturday, ECAC regular-season champ St. Lawrence prevailed over Minnesota-Duluth, 1-0, in a goaltending duel. Later that night, Wisconsin held off upstart Mercyhurst by a 2-1 count in double overtime.

The results mean that the all of the host teams, representing the consensus top four teams in the nation, survived to vie for the NCAA title this weekend.

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