No Time for Complacency

The No. 5 Harvard women’s hockey team won a pair of games this weekend to extend its nation-leading unbeaten streak to 15 games.

A 4-3 win over No. 4 Dartmouth on Friday gave the Crimson (20-6-3, 17-1-2 ECAC) the Ivy League title, and the next day’s demolition of Vermont clinched the ECAC crown outright. The year 2005 has seen Harvard go 13-0-2 and win its seventh straight Beanpot.

A less ambitious bunch would be satisfied with these achievements, but coach Katey Stone’s Crimson has loftier goals.

“We’re after another trophy,” Stone said, contemplating the ECAC hardware after the game on Saturday afternoon.

A 17-1-2 record in league play and the team’s third straight conference championship brings little resolution to playoff-bound Harvard, with a busy month of March still ahead of it.

“This is just the beginning,” tri-captain Nicole Corriero said. “This is just the first step of a whole bunch of goals we want to accomplish. We don’t get too excited.”

Aside from not getting too excited, the Crimson will also be looking to steer away from complacency. While teams like the injury-plagued Big Green will spend this week resting and recouping its ailing stars, Stone plans to stick to a full practice schedule.

“We’re going to keep working really hard,” Stone said. “We’re going to work on the things we want to do a little bit better, continue with our conditioning—we’re not going to shy away from that.”

In adopting this preparation strategy, Stone is taking the long-term approach to the coming weeks.

“So that we’re mentally and physically tough when Friday rolls around,” Stone said. “So we can keep playing hockey for the next four weekends.”

The season culminates in the NCAA Frozen Four in Durham, N.H. on March 25 and 27.

TOURNEY TIME

Before the national championship rolls around, Harvard must face the conference tournament, which begins in earnest this Friday. An active final weekend to college hockey’s regular season set the fields for these events, while the ECAC action was of special interest to Harvard, which hosts Clarkson in the opening round.

After missing out on its chance to garner the top seed by falling to the Crimson on Friday night, Dartmouth was nevertheless guaranteed the second slot when St. Lawrence skated to a tie with Colgate.

Yale eased into the fourth spot, and Princeton won its contests over Union to lock up the five-hole, leaving just the sixth and seventh seeds—assured of being Colgate and Brown—to be determined.

That presented an interesting quandary for the Big Green, slated to take on the Bears on Saturday. Brown prevailed at home by a final of 3-1, though Dartmouth might not have minded the defeat too much.

In that loss, Big Green coach Mark Hudak rested Olympian Cherie Piper after she gritted out an appearance against Harvard the night before.

The victory earned the Bears—a dangerous squad and traditional ECAC power experiencing a down year—the sixth seed. That leaves Dartmouth with the gritty, but less dynamic Raiders in the opening round instead.

Furthermore, Brown might be able to repeat its Feb. 18 upset of St. Lawrence and clear the Big Green’s path to a final-round rematch with the Crimson.

RANK AND FILE

The combination of Harvard sweeping its weekend series and the Saints’ uninspiring set against Colgate and Cornell propelled the Crimson past St. Lawrence in the Div. I polls and firmly into the fifth position. The Crimson is even within striking distance of the top-four, as slumping Dartmouth traded spots with Wisconsin and slid down to No. 4.

The status quo prevailed at the top of the heap when No. 1 Minnesota earned a split against local rival No. 2 Minnesota-Duluth, courtesy of a 1-0 triumph on Sunday.

The Bulldogs handed the Golden Gophers just their second loss of the season, besting them 4-2 on Saturday evening.

This arrangement was nearly replicated in the Pairwise Rankings—which aim to predict the method used by the NCAA Selection Committee—except for a swap of the Big Green and Badgers.

Harvard now appears in line to host its opening-round NCAA tilt, unless the Crimson falters before then.

—Staff writer Jonathan Lehman can be reached at jlehman@fas.harvard.edu.