Women's Hockey Struggles Early, Surges Late In League Victory

Smack in the middle of a grueling 16-day, eight-game stretch of hockey, it’s hard to blame the Harvard women for being a little tired.

Though the No. 6 Crimson (14-5-4, 10-5-2 ECAC) looked far from its best on Friday night, it still played well enough to hand visiting Brown (2-17-4, 0-14-3) a 4-1 loss at Bright Hockey Center.

“It wasn’t pretty,” junior Kate Buesser said. “It’s a win, but I definitely don’t think we should feel real great about it.”

Freshman Kaitlin Spurling’s goal with 1:22 to play in the second proved to be the game-winner and turned the momentum in Harvard’s favor for the balance of the contest.

Less than two minutes after the Bears’ Victoria Smith had tallied her first collegiate goal to tie the game at one, Spurling took a pass from co-captain Kathryn Farni and skated up the right boards.

Pulling up in front of the net, Spurling made a nice move on Brown goaltender Katie Jamieson and went top-shelf for the 2-1 lead.

“It was a great effort—an outside drive that we’ve been talking to the kids about, and she did a nice job of picking the corner,” Crimson coach Katey Stone said. “It was good, sort of gave us some energy.”

The tally sent Harvard into the locker room on a high note, and the team came out to play a tighter third period and put the game out of reach.

“Goals just fire up the team, and I think that’s exactly what happened this time,” Buesser said. “We just got...I wouldn’t say rolling, but we did start to put a few more pucks away after that.”

Buesser got in on the action just over two minutes into the final frame. Picking up an outlet pass from co-captain Cori Bassett, the junior took a shot from high in the offensive zone.

The puck ricocheted off of Jamieson’s pads and flew high in the air, confounding the Bears’ defense. When it fell back to the ice, some lucky bounces put it across the goal line.

“I think it hit one of their players and the goaltender, and it just bounced in,” Buesser explained. “It’s kind of a fluky goal, but again, a goal’s a goal, so it was nice to actually have it.”

Playing with the two-goal lead, Bassett and Farni drew a pair of back-to-back penalties midway through the third—giving Brown a chance to get back in the game.

“It was disappointing that we got two penalties right there, which I thought were tired, sort of frustrated penalties,” Stone said. “I thought we deserved them both.”

But through 54 seconds of 5-on-3 play, Harvard’s junior trio of Ashley Wheeler, Leanna Coskren, and Buesser stood strong, backed up by a few nice saves from rookie netminder Laura Bellamy.

The Crimson was never really tested again after that penalty kill, and the squad added an insurance tally with 30 seconds to play.

After the Bears’ Samantha Stortini was whistled for high sticking with just over a minute left, Harvard set up on its power play.

Coskren sent in a pass from the blue line, and senior Randi Griffin reached out to tip it just inside the left post to make the final score 4-1.

But though the Crimson’s offense began to click in the third period, the first half of the game was remarkable more for Harvard’s lack of chances.

The Crimson mustered only nine shots on goal in the first period against a Brown squad that typically allows over three goals per game.

“I think it’s partly Brown—their goaltender did a good job,” Stone said. “We did nothing to take their goalie’s eyes away. Our puck support was not good, we were too far away from everybody. We were just not on our toes today.”

Harvard did get on the scoreboard with a minute to play in the opening frame, when freshman Josephine Pucci grabbed a pass from classmate Jillian Dempsey in the left circle and buried the puck with a high shot.

“The freshmen are really stepping up right now, and that’s exactly what we need them to do,” said Buesser, who was credited with the secondary assist on the play.

While Pucci, Dempsey, and Spurling provided offense, their classmate Bellamy recorded 22 saves to earn her fourth-straight win.

Bellamy currently stands third in the country with a 1.22 goals-against average and has not allowed more than a goal in a game during the unbeaten streak.

But even though the game will ultimately go down as a win for Bellamy and her teammates, the Crimson is not content to settle for its inconsistent performance.

“We’ve seen ourselves play a lot better, and I think it’s disappointing to come out like that,” Buesser said. “A win’s a win, but we’d rather a little different effort.”

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