Stalwart Defense Gives the Crimson the Tie

When you think about Harvard’s top rivals, the list is pretty slim. There’s Princeton for women’s soccer, Cornell for men’s hockey, and for everyone, there’s Yale. But for women’s hockey, there is New Hampshire.

The Crimson (3-3-1, 3-3-0 ECAC) and the No. 4 Wildcats (8-1-4, 4-0-1 Hockey East) renewed their rivalry last night at Bright Hockey Center, and the perennial powers battled to a 1-1 tie.

Harvard set the tone with an early goal from junior forward Katharine Chute.

As New Hampshire tried to clear the zone, Chute snatched the puck from a Wildcat defender and found open ice between the circles.

Her shot flew into the top right corner of the net to give the Crimson an early 1-0 lead on its first shot on goal of the night.

“I was forechecking one of the high players and I think one of their D passed the puck up towards the center,” Chute said. “I picked it off and saw the top of the net wide open.”

Chute’s goal shifted the momentum squarely in Harvard’s direction, as the team relied on crisp passing and good defense to hold New Hampshire without a shot on goal for the next 11 minutes.

“Had we played the way we had played in the first for the whole game, we would have definitely won the game,” senior goaltender Christina Kessler said.

But as soon as the first intermission ended, the Wildcats got even.

Opening the period with 48 seconds of penalty kill remaining from junior Courtney Birchard’s first-frame interference, New Hampshire prevented the Crimson from setting up on the power play.

And after forcing Harvard back into its own zone, senior Micaela Long stole the puck and launched a shot on net. Kessler made the first save, but Long put her own rebound under Kessler’s extended leg to tie the score at one just 41 seconds into the second.

“[It was] very disappointing how we started the second period, and we also played the second period watching,” Stone said. “We stood around and spectated quite a bit.”

The Wildcats kept up the pressure throughout the second frame, outshooting the Crimson, 10-6.

Half of those shots came on an early-period power play.

With co-captain Cori Bassett in the box for checking, New Hampshire set up on its nation-leading extra-man unit. Though the Wildcats peppered Kessler with five shots, the netminder held up to the pressure.

“Kessler played well tonight for us,” Stone said. “She was big in some pretty key spots…There was one post in the third period that was a little scary, but we didn’t give them awesome looks on the power play, which was really good.”

The third period proved to be a much more balanced affair.

Harvard came out on top in the shot count, 10-7, and rookie Kaitlin Spurling and senior Anna McDonald each had scoring opportunities, with McDonald hitting the pipe on a breakaway shot.

“We weren’t there on that second tier of attack,” Stone said. “Even though we were generating a lot of the offense, we weren’t there for the rebounds.”

But when junior Leanna Coskren was called for hooking with 1:35 to play in regulation, the Crimson gave New Hampshire a crucial opportunity.

Harvard’s penalty-kill unit stepped up once again, and the game headed into extra time.

“The shots were outside, which helped me a lot,” Kessler said. “I think that we played it perfectly.”

Five additional minutes wasn’t enough time to decide the contest—the Crimson and Wildcats each recorded two shots on net, but couldn’t break through Kessler or New Hampshire goalie Lindsay Minton.

And just as the Wildcats did at the end of regulation, Harvard squandered a key power-play opportunity in the final minutes of overtime.

New Hampshire junior Courtney Sheary spent the last 85 seconds of the game in the box for a hooking infraction, but the Crimson couldn’t muster a shot on goal.

It was yet another disappointment for the Harvard power-play unit, which has scored just two extra-man goals in seven games—good for just 27th in the nation.

“We’re getting better at it, but we’ve still got to have faith in each other that we can move the puck,” Stone said.

For the game, the Crimson outshot the Wildcats, 28-25, but in the end, it was another disappointing result from a close game against a top team.

“They’re a good team, they’re going to be in the hunt down the stretch, and they’re going to knock off some people,” Stone said. “But it’s just unfortunate because it would have been a real good win for us. It’s a decent tie, but it would have been a real good win.”

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