Women's Hockey Suffers First Loss

The Harvard’s women’s ice hockey team (3-1-0, 1-0-0 Ivy) fell short against Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (2-5-1, 1-1-0 ECAC) in a 2-1 matchup on Friday night. The loss was the first of the season for the Crimson, who had outscored opponents 13-4 going into Friday’s affair.

“I think it’s safe to say the game didn’t go the way we wanted it to,” freshman defender Briana Mastel said. “It was our first loss of the season and we had the potential to win, but came up short.”

The deciding goal came with ten minutes left. RPI forward Katie Rooney fired a shot from the slot after the Crimson was unable to win the battle for a puck behind the net.

“It was a tough game,” Harvard coach Maura Crowell said. “Giving up that goal in the last eight or nine minutes was unfortunate and was a pretty big defensive mistake that was costly for us.”

The Crimson allowed eight RPI attempts on goal in the first period. However, the rest of the game saw 24 attempts by Harvard and seven by the Engineers. The Crimson recorded a season-high of 30 shots to RPI’s 15.

“We didn’t start the game the way we would have liked to,” Crowell said. “We gave up a goal in the first period and it felt like we were trying to play catch-up from that point on.”

The Engineers managed to score after an RPI power play left forward Laura Horwood undefended in front of the net.

“We needed to start the game with a greater sense of urgency,” Mastel said. “We should be able to maintain that drive throughout the entire 60 minutes of play.”

Maschmeyer had 13 saves, while RPI goaltender Kelly O’Brien had 29 saves. Harvard also spent eight minutes in the penalty box on four infractions.

“[RPI] is not really a team that traditionally opens up and the score is usually pretty tight,” Crowell said.  “They’re physical and clog up the ice so it’s hard to use our speed, which is a key part of our game. They did a pretty good job of executing this game plan.”

The Crimson put itself on the scoreboard when sophomore forward Dylanne Crugnale slapped a shot into the back of the net four minutes into the second period.

“She had a pretty fantastic goal,” Crowell said. “Any time we score a goal that’s always a big momentum shift. From that point forward we had pretty good energy for the rest of the period.”

Crugnale’s goal is her third of this season. Junior forward Hillary Crowe found Crugnale for her third assist of the year.

The one-goal affair was Harvard’s first of the season.

“It’s a young group and we’re trying to work out the kinks and trust each other and put together a good 60 minutes of hockey,” Crowell said. “[The freshmen] didn’t have much time to adjust to college hockey. They were thrown into big situations and it should be great for us in the future.”

O’Brien staved off several desperate attempts by the Crimson offense in the last minute.

“We battled and we pulled the goalie and did everything we could all the way down to the last buzzer and just fell a little short,” Crowell said.