TO SAY THE LEIST: Harvard In Prime Form for Playoffs

The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat. As a sportswriter, capturing that is supposed to be my weekly task.

I’ve been on the women’s hockey beat for more than a year, and I suppose you can say my experience has been an atypical one. I’ve gotten plenty of practice writing about victories, but it wasn’t until last month that I actually witnessed the team lose.

Crazy, right? In case you aren’t a women’s hockey aficionado, a little bit of context.

Last year, Harvard was beyond good. The Crimson went undefeated in the conference, lost just once in the regular season, and rode a 21-game win streak all the way to the national semifinals where the team was bounced by powerhouse Wisconsin.

But let’s get one thing straight: this is not last year’s Crimson.

Not everything came so easily for Harvard this time around. The team got swept on the road twice in November. Injuries befell starters Jenny Brine and Cori Bassett, causing them to miss a combined eight games. Superstars Sarah Vaillancourt and Christina Kessler umderwent prolonged absences to play for their respective Canadian national teams. The Crimson’s powerful offense was mired in a frustrating slump.

And after a loss to Dartmouth on Jan. 6, Harvard found itself in an unfamiliar position. With the end of the regular season just a few weeks away, the team sat under .500 and, for the first time in years, was left out of any conversation about the NCAA playoffs.

Credit it to whatever you like: the pressure of living up to astronomically high expectations, a tough early-season road schedule, or just plain bad luck.

But, as Crimson coach Katey Stone has been known to say, you have to make your own luck. And in the second half of the season, that’s just what the resurgent Harvard team has done.

Since its 5-3 win at Brown on Jan. 9, the Crimson has gone undefeated in the ECAC. The offense has exploded, averaging 3.77 goals per game over the last 13 contests.

Vaillancourt’s rebounded as well, with 30 of her team-leading 47 points coming in that stretch. Kessler’s only four shutouts on the season have been in the last 12 games. Harvard’s two top offensive lines are firing on all cylinders, and special teams have been a strength.

It’s clear to any spectator that the Crimson has put its early-season struggles behind it. In short, Harvard is playing its best hockey at just the right time.

The only two losses in the last seven weeks were nail-biters against Hockey East titans No. 5 New Hampshire and No. 6 Boston College. In both, the Crimson arguably outplayed its opponent, only to be foiled first by the Eagles’ excellent goaltender and second by a Wildcat overtime power-play goal.

Of course, there’s a little bit of extra luck that Harvard couldn’t control. The Crimson had trailed the Big Green in the conference standings all season, but Dartmouth failed to win any of its last four ECAC contests. A Princeton upset of league-leading St. Lawrence on Valentine’s Day helped set up last Friday’s showdown between Harvard and the Saints for the league title.

That’s when the Crimson took advantage of the fortunate opening. With the league title on the line, Harvard clobbered St. Lawrence, 4-0, and Clarkson, 6-1, to jump from third to first in just over a week and prove that it’s the team to beat in the conference playoffs.

Same result as last year, different route. But this year’s Crimson is a much better team for the difficulties it has overcome.

Last week, after that crushing 3-2 overtime loss to New Hampshire, it would have been understandable if Harvard came out hesitantly against the Saints.

Instead, the Crimson did just the opposite.

Vaillancourt, as she is wont to do, took control of the game. With two beautiful goals (that you can see for yourself at thecrimson.com!) in the opening ten minutes, she ensured that her team dictated the pace of the game right from the beginning.

It’s hard to talk about the Crimson’s resurgence without acknowledging Vaillancourt. After being crowned the best player in collegiate women’s hockey last March, you can expect her name to once again be among the finalists for the Patty Kazmaier award when they are announced next week.

Though her limited early-season production may hamper her chances for a repeat—and it seems like Mercyhurst junior Meghan Agosta, twice a top-three finalist for the award and currently averaging an absurd 2.60 points per game, might be overdue—nobody’s played better in the last month than Vaillancourt.

But the tri-captain is just one cog in a team that needs all hands on deck to earn a spot in and advance through the NCAA tournament.

Harvard has shaken off preseason expectations and redefined itself on its own terms. Led by its veterans, the Crimson has gained confidence, fought back from tough deficits, and learned from its missteps. When it would have been easy to give up and write the season off as a disappointment, that’s when Harvard revealed its true character.

This isn’t last year’s Crimson, but one thing remains the same—the goal of winning the ECAC tournament, and making a run at that elusive national title, is well within its reach.

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