W. Hockey Takes on No. 1 UNH

The match-up of the weekend in women's college hockey will take place Sunday in Durham, N.H., where No. 3 Harvard will take on No. 1 New Hampshire.

Before that, however, the Crimson (5-1-0, 3-1-0 ECAC) will play at Colby (0-4-0, 0-4-0 ECAC) in Waterville, Maine. Harvard hopes to warm up against the White Mules to be sharp for the showdown with UNH (5-0-3, 4-0-2 ECAC) the next day.

This weekend's contests are the first of seven consecutive road games for the Crimson, which will not play at the Bright Hockey Center again until Jan. 2. Harvard has not played since blowing out St. Lawrence and Cornell on Nov. 20 and 21 at the Bright Center.

"We haven't played a game in about two weeks, so it will be good to get on the ice against Colby," Harvard Coach Katey Stone said. "If we played UNH first and then Colby I'd have more concern just because I'd like to be in a game situation again before we hit the ice against the Wildcats."

If the Crimson is on its game against Colby, things could get ugly in Waterville. Harvard sports the second-best offense in the ECAC, averaging 5.83 goals per game, and Colby has the lowest-rated defense in the conference, giving up 9.25 goals per contest. The White Mules also have the worst offense in the ECAC, averaging 0.75 goals per game.

Colby, which will become a Division III women's hockey team next season, has struggled in its final Division I campaign. The White Mules have been outscored 37-3 en route to falling into a tie for 13th place in the ECAC and are still looking for their first victory.

The only bright spot for Colby is the experience sophomore goaltender Josephine Chapman has been getting between the pipes. Chapman is the reigning ECAC Goaltender of the Week after posting 153 saves against No. 2 Brown and No. 6 Providence last weekend. However, she also gave up 21 goals in the two contests.

With Chapman taking the heat on defense, the White Mules have not been able to get much offensive experience for its young team, which has only one senior and one junior. The only goals have come from sophomore forward Emiko Domoto-Reilly and junior forward Alanna Mingay.

There will be no lopsided match-up in Durham, however. The only team with more offensive production than Harvard is UNH, which averages 6.5 goals a game. The Crimson has given up 1.67 goals a contest, and the Wildcats have surrendered 1.38 goals per game.

The Wildcats will send scorers at the Crimson defense in waves, with eight players having scored more than ten points after just eight games. Senior defenseman Nicki Luongo, the third-highest scorer in the ECAC, will lead the UNH attack. Luongo and junior forward Carisa Zaban have combined for 21 assists this season and will handle the puck for UNH.

Luongo and Zaban have plenty of teammates eager to get the puck and shoot on goal. The most potent scorers have been junior forward Samantha Holmes and sophomore forward Michelle Thornton, who have combined for 16 goals.

That means Harvard's defense must be on the top of its game. The Crimson gave up two goals each to St. Lawrence and Cornell, but it has not faced an offense like UNH.

"We're going to be fine on the defensive end, we just need to play our game because we have some great defensemen," co-captain Claudia Asano said. "We've been working on our defense since the beginning of the season because we've known it's a weakness, and recently we've been picking up our defensive zone coverage."

Asano and freshman sensation Angela Ruggiero will anchor the Crimson defense in front of junior netminder Crystal Springer, with help from defensemen Christie MacKinnon and Julie Rando. If they can move the puck quickly out of the defensive zone, Harvard's explosive offense will be able to put pressure on UNH.

"We need to have a big game from Crystal Springer and then we need to work our way up from there," Stone said. "We need to make sure we control our own end first and then dominate in the neutral zone because the offense will take care of itself."

That offense features five of the top 20 scorers in the ECAC. The top line of co-captain A.J. Mleczko, sophomore Tammy Shewchuk and freshman Jen Botterill has combined for 43 points in six games. But scoring has also come from Ruggiero and sophomore forwards Angie Francisco and Tara Dunn, who have combined for 30 points.

When these two explosive offenses clash Sunday, penalties may be the difference in the game. The rink is larger at UNH's Whittemore Center than at the Bright Center. That space will give both offenses more room to operate, especially on the power play.

And there probably will be plenty of power plays. Harvard is averaging 12 penalty minutes a game, while UNH averages 12.5 penalty minutes per contest. However, the Crimson and the Wildcats have the two best penalty kill percentages in the ECAC.

Harvard should be productive if its power play unit of Mleczko, Francisco, Shewchuk, Botterill and Ruggiero can play with a man advantage and enough room to spread the offense. But it will be especially difficult for a shorthanded Crimson defense to stop the Wildcats' potent offense.

"There will be some penalties both ways because of the intensity of this game," Asano said. "Their power play is a lot different from our power play because they run a cycle out of the corner. We haven't had to kill a power play like that this year, so we've been practicing our man-down defense all week."

The Whittemore Center was the site of last season's first-round playoff game between Harvard and UNH. The Wildcats narrowly escaped an upset by pulling out a 2-1 victory in overtime. With Harvard joining UNH as one of the top programs in the country this season, that quarterfinal may have been the start of a long rivalry between the Crimson and the Wildcats.

"This is a rematch, but we have more to prove this time because we have a lot more talent now," said Asano of what could be her last trip to the Whittemore Center. "We have something to prove because we could have beaten them last year and we have more talent than we [seniors] have ever had in our careers."

More importantly, this is another chance to see how Harvard and UNH perform against other top teams. The Crimson has outscored its opponents by a combined 35-10, and the Wildcats have dominated their victims by a combined 52-11. The scores have not been nearly as lopsided against ranked teams, however.

Harvard defeated No. 6 Providence, 6-1, and No. 4 Minnesota, 3-1, but lost to No. 2 Brown, 4-2. UNH, meanwhile, tied all three of those teams. There might be a significant decline in competition after the top six teams in the nation, but when the best teams have played each other, the games have been very close.

"These are the kind of games we want to play," Stone said. "We want to be in tight match-ups as much as we can because it makes you better, shows you what you're made of, shows you how good you are and--win or lose--shows you what you need to work on.

"It's still early in the season, and we're not anywhere near what we'll be in March, but we're ready to go. I think that if we do the things we do well and worry about ourselves, we'll win."