Women's Hockey Engineers Late Comeback

Riding into Storrs, Conn. with a four-game losing streak in tow, the Harvard women’s hockey team desperately needed a victory against Connecticut to break the slide. Yet for two periods last night, it didn’t appear as if they would get that win.

With an offensive onslaught in the last 15 minutes, the Crimson (7-5-1, 6-1-0 ECAC) narrowly averted the costly road upset at the hands of UConn (5-7-3, 2-2-0 Hockey East) and resumed its winning ways.

Down 3-1 going into the final frame, freshman Sarah Vaillancourt came to the rescue, scoring three of four goals en route to the 5-3 comeback victory. Her third score of the hat-trick was the game-winner, arriving with less than a minute remaining in regulation.

“We had to get out of this little funk we’ve been in,” tri-captain forward Nicole Corriero said. “It’s frustrating because we didn’t play three good periods of hockey. We played one. But to come from behind is great.”

The Harvard offense that had stagnated through the first two periods came alive in the third thanks to Vaillancourt. The freshman—who also assisted on the two Crimson goals she did not score—initiated the comeback with a power-play tally in a 4-on-3 situation 5:39 into the period. Senior defenseman Ashley Banfield and junior tri-captain Julie Chu assisted on the goal.

On Vaillancourt’s next score, with 9:34 left, a group of Harvard skaters arrived in front of the goal, hacking at the loose puck that UConn netminder Kaitlin Shain stopped several times but couldn’t cover up, leaving it for the freshman winger to backhand through Shain’s wickets.

“Sarah came up big tonight,” Corriero said. “From her spot on the power play, she we was able to find the back of the net.”

Vaillancourt then pushed the decisive tally across with the seconds winding off the clock. Fed by Chu and senior defenseman Ashley Banfield inside the left faceoff circle, she slapped the winner past Shain for her eighth goal of the season.

Chu, who totaled three assists on the game, scored on an empty net with 14.8 seconds left to cement the win.

The stirring comeback, however, was only half the story for the Crimson on this night. Through the first two-thirds of the contest, the Harvard forwards found the back of the net just once, when Corriero’s team-leading 21st goal knotted the score at one on a power play in the first period.

This offensive lag came against a UConn defense that surrendered five goals to No. 8 New Hampshire, the Crimson’s next opponent, on Saturday.

“It hit us that we’re losing 3-1 to UConn right now, and we have a job to do,” Banfield said. “They’re not a team that you can take lightly, though I think it took us two periods to figure that out. We got really lucky.”

At the same time, however, Harvard allowed three soft goals of its own, prompting head coach Katey Stone to lift sophomore netminder Emily Vitt in favor of junior Ali Boe. Boe successfully held the Huskies scoreless in the final period on her way to picking up the win.

Harvard will take on the Wildcats at the Whittemore Center this Saturday at 5 p.m.