W. Hockey Dominates in Two-Game Sweep

In its opening playoff series, the No. 2 Harvard women’s hockey team proved that when it rains shots on net, goals tend to pour in on helpless puckstoppers’ heads.

In a two-game set against Cornell this past weekend, the Crimson rejuvenated its offense with 13 goals, winning Saturday’s game 4-1 and Friday night’s contest 9-1.

This surge came on the heels of last weekend’s two low-scoring affairs in which Harvard (27-3-1, 17-3-0 ECAC) could only muster a combined three goals—one an empty-netter—on Yale and Princeton.

“We’re preparing for the ECACs and the NCAAs,” co-captain Angela Ruggiero said. “If we came to this game, just sort of walked into the rink and didn’t really prepare ourselves mentally and just played without a lot of intensity, it would carry over next week.”

The two wins against Cornell (7-21-2, 3-17-0) marked the last two home games for the three Harvard seniors—co-captains Lauren McAuliffe and Angela Ruggiero and Mina Pell.

“Obviously it’s a sad day,” Ruggiero said. “We love this rink, we love playing in front of our fans, our classmates. Although it’s our last game here, at least it’s not our last game period.”

“The bottom line is that a lot of teams’ seasons are over now, and we get to still play,” said Harvard coach Katey Stone. “And so we’re not focused in on the sadness part of it and saying good-bye. It’s time to say hello to somebody and take a game or two from people, so that’s what we’re working for.”

The focus now shifts to Brown, the Crimson’s opponent in the next round of the ECAC playoffs. The game will take place in Schenectady this Saturday, with finals to follow the next afternoon.

HARVARD 4, CORNELL 1

Though Harvard was penciled in to sweep Cornell before the quarterfinals series began, the Crimson still came out and played like it was the NCAA Championship title game in Providence, R.I.

“It was a little different than yesterday, but oftentimes that happens on the second day,” Stone said. “It gets a little closer on the second day.”

In the first half of the opening period, it looked like Harvard might run away with another one-sided affair as its big guns stepped up to put the Crimson ahead 2-0.

Two minutes removed from Ruggiero’s opening tally, Corriero added one of her own from McAuliffe at 7:32 in the first. She received the puck alone behind the net on the left side, skated with it up to the side of the net and put it right in between Vineberg’s legs for the goal.

“It’s playoff hockey, you got to come with your best game everyday,” Ruggiero said. “One thing that we talked about was that we didn’t want to let up, we wanted to play our level of hockey today. Although we didn’t score as many goals, we went hard the entire time.”

In fact, the Harvard defense stepped up its play and allowed fewer shots on this night than the previous one, allowing only nine shots to reach sophomore Ali Boe.

One of the reasons for the closer score was the play of the Cornell goalie, Flora Vineberg. After letting in five goals on Friday and seeming to lose her focus again in the first period the next day, she bounced back to limit the Crimson offense throughout the rest of the game.

On a number of Harvard’s better chances, Vineberg was able to snatch the puck out of the air with her glove—which she had trouble doing on Friday night when the Crimson kept shooting top shelf to beat her for a number of quick goals.

The most spectacular of these saves came with just under four minutes left in the first period. With Cornell still down only 2-0 and Harvard continuing to push to put the game away, Vineberg stuffed a Harvard breakaway by knocking the puck up in the air and then acrobatically twisting around to catch it before it rebounded over her head and into the goal.

For the Crimson, the road to ECAC and NCAA championships is certainly paved with top-notch goaltenders. But Harvard wanted to focus this weekend on perfecting smaller details, rather than on it’s offensive output.

“We’re trying to perfect two of our forechecks, and we did a few things on face-offs to give the kids a little bit of rep time, being comfortable in those situations,” Stone said. “Just the intensity, and from here on out, if you can’t get up for these games, you got something wrong with you because this is playoff hockey.”

Harvard will have no trouble getting up for next two weeks’ contests, with the two championships and possibly two match-ups against rival Dartmouth on the horizon.

HARVARD 9, CORNELL 1

Balanced attack was the name of the game for the Crimson on Friday, as six different players scored a goal and nine added an assist.

The nine goals were the most Harvard had scored since the beginning of the season when it went into Schenectady and ransacked Division I newbie Union.

“What I liked more than anything else was that we were starting to roll offensively,” Stone said. “We don’t have to score nine goals. But it was nice to have different opportunities from different lines.”

On Friday night, the opportunities seemed to come in bunches as the Crimson pulled away with the game after netting five unanswered goals in less than four minutes late in the second period.

When junior forward Corriero—Harvard’s points leader—put in the second goal of the night for the Crimson, the offense opened up and began finding the holes it had been pounding away at for a period and a half.

“I think we killed their spirits, eventually when we started putting it in the net,” McAuliffe said. “Once we started we didn’t let down. Once the first one came, we picked it up and the second and third came quicker.”

McAuliffe capped the goal blitz with her own tally, putting the puck top shelf past Cornell goalie Beth Baronick—who had only entered the game half a minute earlier for the Big Red’s starting goalie, Flora Vineberg.

Vineberg, after limiting Harvard to one goal in the first half of the game, could not withstand the Crimson’s rush and gave up the first four goals of the five-tally explosion before being pulled.

“Cornell is in the process of rebuilding their program and I think they’re doing a really good job,” Stone said. “They play really hard, and really try to play within their system. Their goaltender hung in there, but we just got to be too much for them.”

Freshman Emily Vitt got the start between the pipes, registering 20 saves on the night.

Many of those stoppers came when Cornell was finally able to skate past the Crimson forecheck and, on the ensuing breakaway, crashed the net and tried to put in the rebounds.

But the majority of play was dominated by Harvard’s passing and puck handling, with Crimson skaters weaving through the Big Red defense and throwing shot after shot on goal.

“We got ourselves moving—we moved the puck instead of overhandling the puck,” Stone said. “That made a difference. We put the pucks to the net a lot faster, and that’s when good things happen. You’re never going to score a goal if the puck’s on your —Staff writer Gabriel M. Velez can be reached at gmvelez@fas.harvard.edu.