Icewomen Shake off Rust to Garner Two Road Wins

The Harvard women's hockey team (10-4-1 overall, 3-3-1 ECAC) passed a pretty big test this past weekend--the test of rustiness.

Although the team's play could be labelled as sloppy much of the time, Harvard went on a long road trip to Middlebury and Cornell and came back with two wins.

Harvard's passing was off much of the time, but the team jumped out on top early in each game and was able to coast to a 4-2 win over Middlebury on Saturday and a 6-0 blanking of Cornell the next day.

The rust seemed to wear off pretty quickly when sophomore Stacy Kellogg netted a feed from freshman A.J. Mleczko during the first shift of the Middlebury game to put the Crimson up 11 seconds into match.

Mleczko then scored a goal of her own at the 5:13 mark, assisted by co-captain Joey Alissi and Mleczko's junior sister Winkie.

Harvard completely dominated the period, outshooting Middlebury, 16-6.

A power-play goal by sophomore Holly Leitzes 31 seconds into the third period put the Crimson up by three, and Alissi erased any chance of a Middlebury comeback with her goal at the 6:21 mark, less than a minute and a half after Middlebury had cut Harvard's lead to 3-1.

The next day saw co-captain Francie Walton score twice in a 6-0 blanking of the Big Red at Ithaca, New York.

Junior Erin Villiotte (17 saves) and freshman Whitney Smith (2 saves) combined to give the Crimson its third shutout of the season.

Mleczko gave Harvard all the offense it would need, as her goal at the 7:38 mark of the first proved to be the game-winner.

The Crimson then put the game out of reach with four goals in the second by Leitzes, Walton (2) and Kellogg, before freshman Alexis Boyle finished the carnage in the third.

Despite the wins, the Crimson had mixed emotions over its effort.

"You could definitely tell we had some time off," Walton said. "We had a slow start, but the puck fell for us a couple of times."

Around the league: with its win over Cornell, Harvard moves into a seventh-place tie with Colby in the ECAC, although the Crimson possesses the second-best record in the six-team Ivy-League. The Crimson are currently on an eight-game winning streak.

Northeastern continues to lead the ECAC with a perfect 7-0-0 record. Providence follows the Huskies with a 6-0-1 mark, while Brown is in third place at 6-1-0.

The Bears have yet lose to an Ivy League match, allowing a paltry total of 11 goalst in six games.

Brown is being led by freshman Danielle Solari, who picked up her second consecutive Ivy League Rookie of the Week award. Her one goal and two assists keyed a 4-0 Bear win at Princeton last Saturday.

Tiger, Tiger: Speaking of Princeton, the Tigers (9-4-0, 5-2-0) invade the Bright Hockey Center this Saturday at 1:00 in a key show-down against the Crimson.

Harvard hopes to avenge a tough 4-3 loss it suffered at Princeton early in December.