Four Titles, Perfect ECAC Record Highlight Season

26-0-0 in the ECAC. Four team titles. Records dropping left and right. Three All-Americans. Eight weeks atop the national polls. An appearance in the NCAA Frozen Four.

Not bad for a team with a No. 6 preseason ranking.

For the Harvard women’s hockey team, the secret to success was simple—team comes first.

“We had talented players, there’s no doubt about that, but we’re not superstars,” tri-captain Caitlin Cahow said. “We depend on teamwork. We don’t win any games without it.”

That mantra carried the Crimson through a fairytale season in which the team brought the Beanpot, Ivy League, and ECAC regular season and tournament titles back to Cambridge.

Harvard started out the season with 11 straight wins, tying a school record and rocketing the Crimson to a No. 1 national ranking.

Along the way, the team took out four ranked opponents, including a Thanksgiving weekend thrashing of then-No. 10 Clarkson and then-No. 2 St. Lawrence.

It was at that point that sophomore goaltender Christina Kessler—who earned the starting job when junior Brittany Martin was slowed with a back injury—came into her own.

Kessler recorded four shutouts in her first 10 games in net en route to an NCAA record 12-shutout season.

Then on Dec. 14, just four days after reaching the top of the polls, Harvard fell to No. 2 New Hampshire in a 4-1 thumping.

“We were sort of flat in the first two periods and came out and played our game in the third, but at that point it was too late,” head coach Katey Stone said following the game.

But despite its youth—the roster boasted 13 freshmen and sophomores—the Crimson came back in January and set out to accomplish the unthinkable.

“We definitely exceeded all expectations that the outside hockey world had in place for us, but our own expectations were pretty lofty even though we lost a couple of key players to graduation and were starting the season with a particularly young team,” Cahow said. “Nobody else thought that we’d be capable of accomplishing all the great things we did this season.”

Harvard set the tone with a 4-1 win over Cornell on January 4, and from then on, it seemed that nothing could stop the Crimson.

The team rattled off 21 straight victories and became the first team to complete a perfect ECAC regular season and sweep the conference playoffs along the way.

It was another win over the Big Red—a 4-2 decision in Ithaca—that gave Harvard a perfect 22-0-0 regular season ECAC record.

“It’s a pretty unbelievable thing to accomplish because there are a lot of really good teams, and we play a lot of games,” junior forward Sarah Vaillancourt said. “It’s easy sometimes to lose your composure, but we didn’t.”

The Crimson took two games from Cornell in the opening round of the ECAC playoffs and then beat Clarkson 3-0 in the semifinals to set up a rematch with St. Lawrence—the team that knocked Harvard out of the ECAC Tournament in 2007—in the conference finals.

It took an extra 3:33, but an overtime breakaway goal from Cahow gave the Crimson a 3-2 victory and the tournament crown.

All the momentum seemed to be on Harvard’s side. The team easily defeated Dartmouth, 5-1, in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament, completing an undefeated season at Bright Hockey Center.

That win, the 300th career victory for Stone, earned the Crimson a trip to Duluth, Minn. to play Wisconsin in the national semifinals.

Unfortunately, this fairytale didn’t have the happiest of endings. Harvard fell, 4-1, in Minnesota, as the Badgers handed the Crimson a season-ending loss for the second consecutive year.

“Of course, it’s tough to lose in that situation, and for me, I really felt that this was my best shot at winning a national championship. I was really convinced that this was going to be our year, but you can’t plan these things,” Cahow said. “The season was so incredible other than that last loss, and the team chemistry was unparalleled. It was my most successful and most favorite season of Harvard hockey.”

And when put in perspective, it really was a great year for the Crimson team.

“I always say that a team finds success when everyone knows their role really well. ” Vaillancourt said. “We always talk about ourselves as family and sisters, and you need that to accomplish big team things.”

Individual accolades would come later. Vaillancourt was honored with the Patty Kazmaier Award as the best player in women’s college hockey, and she was joined by Cahow and Kessler on the All-American Team.

Those three players were also named to the All-ECAC and All-Ivy Teams. Junior forward Jenny Brine—who was the team’s leading scorer in the playoffs with seven goals and two assists and finished second on the squad with 43 points on the year—also earned an All-Ivy honorable mention.

But from start to finish, the season revolved around the team—and with only four seniors graduating, the Crimson has laid the foundation for future success as it prepares to embark on its next title run.

“It was a fantastic group of players. The team chemistry was the best I’ve ever experienced,” Cahow said. “It’s so easy to go to the rink and give 100 percent when you really care about the people you’re playing with.”

—Staff writer Kate Leist can be reached at kleist@fas.harvard.edu.