Chu, Mleczko Score in US Olympic Win

They’re back to defend the gold.

Incoming Harvard freshman Julie Chu ’06 and Harvard alumnus A.J. Mleczko ’97-’99 scored the U.S. Olympic women’s hockey team’s ninth and 10th goals, respectively, last night to lift the Americans to a 10-0 win over Germany yesterday afternoon in front of 8,504 fans in both teams’ Olympic openers.

Mleczko’s goal with just over five minutes remaining in the third period came off a give-and-go with Chu. The connection marked a link between Harvard hockey past and future. After Mleczko passed the pack left to Chu on a two-on-one, she skated ahead past a defender, received the puck back from Chu and snapped it off German goaltender Esther Thyssen’s left shoulder and into the net. The Americans’ tenth goal of the game marked the highest total output for any hockey team, mens’ or womens’, in the 2002 Olympics.

Chu’s goal, the first of her Olympic career, came less than two minutes earlier, immediately after she had come out of the penalty box. The German squad, all positioned up ice on the power play, left Chu unguarded as she reentered the game. Chu received a cleverly placed U.S. clearing pass on the left boards, skated around the rear of the net and unleashed a backhand shot. Her first try was blocked, but she softly backhanded the rebound just inside the right post for the score.

Eight different players scored for the U.S. women, who outshot Germany 57-8. Karen Bye and Natalie Darwitz both lit the lamp twice.

Darwitz scored at 1:44 into the second and again at the 7:10 mark of the period to spark a three-goal outburst in a span of less than two minutes. At 18, Darwitz is the second-youngest player on the U.S. team, but she’s far from inexperienced at skating against older players. In 1996-97, she had 85 goals and 42 assists for Eagan (Minn.) High School; at the time, she was only in seventh grade. At 15, she became the youngest player ever to make the U.S. national team. On this year’s pre-Olympic tour, she was sixth in scoring with 17 goals and 21 assists.

Chris Bailey scored 23 seconds after Darwitz and Bye 80 seconds after that to make it 6-0 and chase Stephanie Wartosch-Kurten from the German goal.

The Americans opened the scoring at 6:16 of the first period when Jenny Potter picked up the puck behind the net and backhanded it to Bye, who chipped it between the goalie’s legs.

Bye had an assist when Baker scored at 15:05 of the first to make it 2-0.

The United States never looked back.

U.S. goaltender Sara DeCosta stopped all eight shots by the Germans. For Germany, Wartossch-Kurten stopped 26 of 32 shots and Thyssen stopped 21 of 25.

The home crowd offered sporadic chants of “U-S-A,” but no outside inspiration was needed for the favored Americans against the bottom seed in their group. The United States has beaten the Germans all six times they have played, outscoring them 69-3.

The Americans have never lost a game to anyone but Canada in Olympic women’s hockey history.

Canada, which features former Harvard linemates Jennifer Botterill ’02-’03 and Tammy Shewchuk ’00-’01, opened Group A on Monday with a 7-0 victory over Kazakhstan. Canada will take on 2001 World Championship bronze medalist Russia today at 1 p.m. Next up for the U.S. is China tomorrow night at 6 p.m.

—Material from the Associated Press was used in the compilation of this story.

—Staff writer David R. De Remer can be reached at remer@fas.harvard.edu.