No. 1 W. Hockey Battles Huskies

Tonight the Northeastern Huskies face the daunting task of cooling off the nation's hottest ice hockey team.

The Harvard's women's hockey team grabbed the No. 1 ranking in both the USA Today/American Hockey Magazine poll and the U.S. College Hockey Online Women's poll this week. Tonight the Crimson faces the Huskies, ranked fifth in the latter poll, at Matthews Arena in Boston.

By garnering all five first-place votes in the USA Today/American Hockey poll, the Crimson claimed the top spot by virtue of its 15-0 win over Colby College and its 3-2 win over formerly top-ranked New Hampshire this weekend. With a 7-1-0 record, the Crimson is off to its best start in 20 years.

"It's pretty exciting for us," said co-captain A.J. Mleczko. "The support that we've had at Harvard has been wonderful. Coming back [after taking a year off to play in the Winter Olympics] has been a unique experience for me because of all the support that we're suddenly getting."

The Crimson's upset of the Wildcats on Sunday was especially sweet because it marked Harvard's first-ever win over New Hampshire. Freshman forward Jennifer Botterill scored the game-winning goal with 5:41 left to play after recording her first-ever hat trick earlier in the weekend against Colby. Botterill was named the ECAC Rookie of the Week, and sophomore forward Tammy Shewchuk won ECAC Player of the Week honors.

Mleczko, Shewchuk and Botterill are all among the top five players in the ECAC in total points scored. In four games together, the three have combined for 17 goals and 24 assists. This weekend the Crimson converted 18 of its 91 shots into goals.

"People keep talking about the talent we have, and we do have a really deep team," Mleczko said. "But beyond that talent is our chemistry and that is an underestimated characteristic of successful teams. A fun team recruits fun players, and it's just a cycle that continues on."

The Crimson faces a formidable challenge tonight in the Huskies, a perennial powerhouse in the ECAC. Ranked fifth, Northeastern lost a 5-2 match to UNH this weekend, who stopped the Huskies on six out of seven power plays. On Sunday the Huskies redeemed themselves with a dominating 9-0 victory over Colby, finishing with a 79-2 shot advantage. In the Colby match, Brooke White, Nicole Lewis and Jennie Setaro each had two goals apiece to balance the Northeastern attack.

The Crimson must not only grapple with a deep Huskies roster, but it must also deal with the absence of co-captain Claudia Asano. Asano suffered a sprained ankle in the match against UNH and will sit out the game tonight.

"[Asano's] injury is a blow to us defensively," Mleczko said. "We know that Northeastern is a great team, from net, to defense, to forward, but we have to take the season game by game."

"[The No. 1 ranking] could be a curse in disguise because everyone will be gunning for us," Mleczko said. "But I still believe that we have yet to play our best game." COLL. HOCKEY POLL

Rank  Team  Record  Prv. 1.  Harvard (9)  7-1-0  3 2.  UNH (1)  6-1-3  1 3.  Minnesota  6-1-1  4 4.  Brown  4-1-3  2 5.  Providence  5-1-2  6 6.  N'eastern  4-2-2  5 7.  Princeton  6-4-0  8 8.  Dartmouth  4-2-2  7 Source: U.S. College Hockey Online

Rank  Team  Record  Prv. 1.  Harvard (9)  7-1-0  3 2.  UNH (1)  6-1-3  1 3.  Minnesota  6-1-1  4 4.  Brown  4-1-3  2 5.  Providence  5-1-2  6 6.  N'eastern  4-2-2  5 7.  Princeton  6-4-0  8 8.  Dartmouth  4-2-2  7 Source: U.S. College Hockey Online