Women's Ice Hockey Offense Comes Alive in Two Weekend Victories

Returning to the comfort of Bright-Landry after a weekend away from home, the No. 9/9 Harvard women’s ice hockey team (5-1-1, 5-1-1 ECAC) extended its winning streak, cruising to a 5-0 victory against cellar dweller Union (0-9-4, 0-4-2) before pulling out a come-from-behind win against Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (4-7-1, 2-3-1).

HARVARD 2, RENSSELAER 1

With the sides tied at one going into the final stanza, the Crimson offense piled on the pressure, sending shot after shot at Engineer goaltender Lovisa Selander. Seven minutes later, Harvard was finally rewarded.

Junior Brianna Mastel swung the puck around off the boards to classmate Sydney Daniels, who managed to get off a short pass behind the goal to sophomore Haley Mullins. Mullins shook off her defender before filtering it to the top of the crease to a waiting Miye D’Oench, who slapped it into the back of the net.

It was the fifth goal of the season for the senior, sending the Crimson to its fifth straight win in what ended up being a game dominated by the defense.

“We battled hard,” Harvard coach Katey Stone said. “We were on our toes the majority of the game…. We got some penalties that made it a little tricky—it shortens up your bench pretty quick when you have to kill a lot of penalties like that, but we weathered the storm.”

The Engineers got on the board first, as rookie Taylor Schwalbe capitalized on RPI’s man-advantage following a hooking penalty by senior Jessica Harvey. Senior Mina Mankey fired a shot from the left faceoff circle at co-captain Emerance Maschmeyer, who failed to contain it, allowing Schwalbe to poke the rebound in.

Facing its first deficit in almost 240 minutes of play, Harvard needed to respond after failing to kill RPI’s power play. It took all of two minutes for that response to arrive.

Controlling the puck just inside the blue line, Mastel rocketed a shot at goal that was redirected by Harvey into the back of the net, evening the score.

It was the seventh straight game a stingy Crimson defense contained its opponents to two goals or less, as Maschmeyer picked up her first win of the season while tallying a season-high 32 saves to help the team pull out a close contest.

“You always want to get the first goal, but it’s not going to happen all the time,” co-captain Michelle Picard said. “We have so much confidence in ourselves that we can bounce back, and we did, so that was great.”

HARVARD 5, UNION 0

The Harvard offense was firing on all cylinders on Friday, as five different players found the net in a rout of a winless Union squad.

“We came out ready to go all the way through the lineup,” Stone said. “We had three lines firing pretty well tonight…. Overall we had a very comprehensive victory.”

After bombarding the Dutchwomen net for the first 15 minutes of the game, the Crimson finally broke through when freshman Kaitlin Tse found Mastel at the point. The junior fired a laser at goal, and the puck ricocheted off a Union player before finding the back of the net.

The lead would double less than four minutes later, as Picard played the puck between herself and sophomores Karly Heffernan and Lexie Laing before firing a slapshot into the bottom right corner to convert on the power play opportunity.

D’Oench would get in on the goal scoring to start the second frame, as Mullins raced down the left wing before drilling a shot at Union netminder Leah Patrick less than half a minute into the period. Patrick failed to control the shot, allowing D’Oench to shovel the loose puck into the net.

The lead would extend even further before the end of the frame, as Heffernan skated down the length of the ice before firing a shot that found the twine. Daniels would wrap up the scoring for Harvard in the final stanza, as the junior redirected a shot from D’Oench past Patrick to give the Crimson a 5-0 victory.

Harvard dominated all aspects of the game, outshooting the Dutchwomen 39-18 and winning 29 faceoffs compared to just 18 for a Union squad that could not keep up with the depth of the Crimson. Netminder Brianna Laing picked up the victory on a quiet night for the junior, who only had to make 10 saves on the night.

“It was an awesome effort all around,” D’Oench said. “Defensively to get the shutout is huge for us, and for the first time we really felt the extent of our offensive firepower…. Scoring from the blue, scoring from the forward, that was awesome.”

—Staff writer Julio Fierro can be reached at julio.fierro@thecrimson.com.