Female Breakout Athlete: Nicole Corriero

On paper, Nicole Corriero’s freshman and junior years don’t look all that different. In her first season, she notched 62 points on 32 goals and 30 assists, each good enough for second in the nation. Two years later, the stat line was almost the same: 42 goals—tops in the nation—31 assists and a point tally third-best in the country. Both times she was named a second-team All-American.

But appreciating Corriero’s contributions to the Harvard women’s hockey team begins with an understanding of who she shared the ice with—and, more importantly, who she didn’t in 2001. When Corriero first arrived on the collegiate scene, the Crimson sorely wanted for offense with Jennifer Botterill ’02-’03 and Angela Ruggiero ’02-’04 taking a year away from the College to compete in the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City.

“[Harvard] had lost a lot of its offensive producers,” Corriero said. “I was put into a role that required me to step up and produce more goals.”

Not surprisingly, she did just that, spearheading the most effective power play unit in the country with her eight man-up tallies while banging home five game-winning goals.

“I was just trying to cope with the fact that I was doing well,” Corriero said. “It was beyond anything I had ever thought was possible.”

But the rush was not to last. Botterill and Ruggiero returned for the 2002-2003 campaign with fellow Olympian Julie Chu in tow, gobbling up the prime scoring opportunities Corriero had so deftly exploited the season before.

“Sophomore year, with the return of the Olympians and other bigger offensive contributors, there wasn’t as much of a need [for individual production] because we were getting it from so many players,” Corriero said. “My numbers dropped because I took on a more defensive role and wasn’t put into as many of the situations that result in goals, like the power play and last minute of games.”

Though she would finish with 39 points on 17 goals and 22 assists—good for fourth on the team behind the Olympic trio—Corriero struggled to adjust to her new subordinate role early in the season, accelerating the precipitous decline in her output. Only when she embraced the defensive responsibility which had been placed upon her did her play and offensive numbers rise to their previous levels—and her game to the highest tier, bridging her transition from that of the freshman offensive sparkplug to the junior bona fide star.

“I did have good numbers my freshman year, but I wasn’t a complete player,” Corriero said.

With Botterill’s graduation, Corriero itched for an opportunity to reclaim her role as an offensive focal point. Knowing she’d be looked to immediately for production, Corriero spent her summer as a rising junior simply preparing, reclaiming the attacker’s mentality she had shifted away from the year before while holding fast to her mature defensive game. Unlike freshman year, there would be no surprise, no period of coming to grips with her own talent.

“I knew I was going to be expected to and that I wanted to take on that more offensive role,” Corriero said. “I shot pucks all summer and I trained specifically so I’d be ready to take on that role again. It wasn’t hard in that sense. But just getting into that groove again was a little different at first.”

Different, but certainly not difficult.

Squaring off twice against Union in the season’s opening weekend, Corriero took an axe to the record books, smoking the Dutchwomen for a school-record six goals in the first game, adding four assists for a record-tying 10 points, before notching a hat trick and three more helpers the following day.

“Every time Nicole came out on the ice, she controlled the game,” said junior forward Kat Sweet. “She completely dominated.”

The historic showing affirmed that Corriero had indeed arrived, again, this time for good. And despite the long, Olympic shadows cast by Ruggiero and Chu, more often than not, with the game on the line, the puck found its way onto Corriero’s stick—and almost as frequently, the back of the net.

“Corriero has always put up the points,” said St. Lawrence coach Paul Flanagan on Feb. 21 after Corriero notched a hat trick and assist to down his Saints 5-1. “She has always put up the numbers. You just don’t see her, and then all of a sudden bang, she’s got her arms up—she’s scored again.”

At no time was that more apparent than those crucial offensive situations she’d been held out of during her sophomore year. Corriero led the nation with 13 power play goals and tied for first with her 10 game-winning goals, none sweeter than the tally she snuck past Sarah Love with seven seconds remaining in the Harvard-Yale contest on March 6, handing the Crimson a 3-2 win.

“I think that as you get older,” Corriero said, “you undertake the responsibility, and you thrive under those pressure situations, just wanting the puck on your stick.”

And by the end it was no surprise. That’s where everyone else wanted it too.

—Staff writer Timothy J. McGinn can be reached at mcginn@fas.harvard.edu.