W. Hockey Fighting for Playoffs

The Harvard women's hockey team takes the ice this weekend for their final and most important homestand of the year. With a good showing the Crimson will find itself headed to the ECAC playoffs, but a lackluster performance may leave Harvard packing its bags, missing out on the postseason.

"Making the playoffs is definitely one of our main goals," Harvard co-captain Kyle Walsh said. "We know we are in a tight spot, so that's what we've been focusing on for the past couple of weeks."

Harvard (12-15, 6-14 ECAC) heads into its final two regular season games against seventh place Princeton (11-14-1, 8-12 ECAC) and ECAC league doormat Yale (7-17-2, 2-16-2) clinging to the eighth and final ECAC playoff spot.

The Crimson currently finds itself in a tie for the final spot with St. Lawrence (8-15-2, 5-13-2 ECAC) with 12 points. Harvard does, however, own the tiebreaker against St. Lawrence, so two wins would clinch it for the Crimson.

If it drops any games, though, Harvard will need some help. If the Crimson splits this weekend, it will need St. Lawrence to lose at least one of its games to get the final spot. The Crimson does have an outside chance at the seventh seed if it sweeps this weekend's contests, and Princeton loses both of its games.

The Crimson enters the weekend led by freshman forward and ECAC Rookie of the Week Angie Francisco, who just recently broke the Harvard single-season scoring record with 54 points, and Ivy League Player of the Week junior forward Jen Gerometta.

Both are coming off very strong outings against Bowdoin, Dartmouth and Boston College, with Francisco tallying four goals and four assists in those games, and Gerometta netting three goals and four assists of her own as the Crimson finished the week 2-1.

Harvard's offense, however, hasn't been the problem this year. The Crimson currently ranks 10th out of 12 ECAC teams in scoring defense, and has given up nine goals in the past two games to B.C. and Ivy-champs Dartmouth.

If the Crimson is to be assured of a playoff spot, it must tighten up on the defensive end, especially against Princeton, who burned Harvard for five goals in a win earlier in the season.

"We've spent the entire week working on our defense," sophomore defenseman Christie MacKinnon said. "Hopefully we've worked out some of the kinks."

With the final playoff spot in reach, the Crimson must be on top of its game this weekend. And although an eighth place finish would set up an undesirable first-round matchup against ECAC-champion New Hampshire (26-4-2, 16-1-2 ECAC), anything less than the postseason would be a disappointment for the Crimson.

"We're in eighth place now, but if we play hard and get on a little run, maybe we can take the number seven spot from Princeton and get in better position for the playoffs," Walsh said.