Prolific Attack Propels Women's Hockey in Domination of Brown

There’s no place like home.

After going 3-3-1 since its last home game on Jan. 19, the Harvard women’s hockey team found its groove again at the Bright Hockey Center on Tuesday night. Despite playing with an altered lineup, the squad registered its 18th straight home victory dating back to last year with a 5-2 win over Brown.

Harvard outshot its visitors, 52-16, and drew eight penalties while only committing five infractions.

“Their goaltender played real well but we had a lot of good looks at the net,” Harvard coach Katy Stone said. “I liked our effort—backchecking, forechecking—it was a pretty comprehensive game. We got a lot of new faces in the lineup and that was exciting for us.”

Despite a shuffling of the lineup before the game, the Crimson’s second line continued its hot streak early, scoring the first goal of the game eight minutes into the first period. Down on the red line, freshman Dylanne Crugnale threaded a pass to sophomore Hillary Crowe in the slot, who stood ready to one-time the puck by Brown goalie Katie Jamieson on the farside for a 1-0 lead. Crowe’s goal extended her point streak to a career-high five games.

Crugnale got the assist after being added to the second line when senior Kaitlin Spurling was moved to the top group to replace junior Kalley Armstrong, who missed the game with an injury, though according to Katy Stone, Armstrong’s absence was mainly precautionary.

“Our whole year has been about stepping up, filling spots, and I’m completely confident in any of our forwards to step up when Army gets hurt or I get hurt,” Fry said. “I think [Spurling] did a great job and I think Dylanne did a great job when she came up front.”

The Bears were able to answer Harvard’s opening tally a minute later with a redirection from the slot to tie the game on the team’s second shot.

But after that, Brown would have no response for the remainder of the Crimson’s onslaught.

Harvard broke the tie before the first period was over when junior Lyndsey Fry beat Jamieson on a breakaway. Co-captain Jillian Dempsey earned an assist on the play by intercepting a puck at center ice and flicking it to a streaking Fry.

With the point, Dempsey entered the top ten in points in Harvard history.

“[It is] just unreal to be even mentioned with some of those players,” Dempsey said. “I couldn’t have done it without my teammates throughout the years.”

Though the Crimson entered the first intermission with a 2-1 advantage, the damage could have been worse as Jamieson made 20 saves in the first period. The goalie continued to stand on her head in the second, making 13 stops on 14 shots, including saves on a number of point-blank opportunities. She finished with 47 saves.

“After the first period it was like, ‘Here we have all these shots and we aren’t producing much,’” Fry said. “She’s a big goalie, she’s a strong goalie, and she does a really good job of getting square with the puck so as long as we were shooting at her without anybody in front she was going to make those saves, as she should.”

Several of Jamieson’s second-period stops came while her team was attempting to kill the four penalties it committed in the second period alone. Harvard made the Bears’ job easier by negating multiple man advantages with infractions of its own.

Yet, the Crimson was able to convert one of its power play chances into points. With five minutes left in the frame, freshman Mary Parker made Brown pay for tripping and slashing penalties by gathering a bouncing puck in the crease and shoveling it home while Harvard was on a five-on-three.

Seven seconds into the final period, Fry put her team up, 4-1, by scoring a dagger goal immediately following the opening faceoff.

“Instead of having their wing lined right up against me, they kind of had her pulled back a bit…so that gave me a little more room to go,” Fry said.  “Then I just thought I caught the defense off-guard.”

Spurling added a goal 10 minutes later to give Harvard its second straight five-goal game.

“That’s great,” Stone said. “It’s nice to have offense coming from a lot of different places.”

The Bears tallied a late goal with less than two minutes remaining, but it wasn’t enough to end Brown’s 24-game winless streak against the Crimson that dates back to 2002.

—Staff writer Jacob D. H. Feldman can be reached at jacobfeldman@college.harvard.edu. Follow him on Twitter @jacobfeldman4