W. Hockey Looks To Defend Title

Year after year, when Harvard reaches the latter stages of the ECAC tournament, there is no love lost between it and perennial opponents Dartmouth and St. Lawrence. But if Yale goalie Sarah Love can find her top form in the semis, the Crimson may not even get to face one of its most bitter rivals in the final.

Harvard will travel to Union College, site of this year’s conference playoffs, with just two wins separating it from a defense of its ECAC tournament title.

The Bulldogs, up first at 1 p.m. tomorrow, pose a serious challenge, despite finishing in a distant fourth place behind the Big Three in the regular season standings, appearing in their first-ever ECAC semifinals, and having beaten the Crimson only seven times in 56 all-time meetings.

Harvard made the mistake of taking them lightly once already this year and the resulting loss cost it dearly. Yale is the only unranked squad to upend the Crimson this season, toppling it by a 3-2 mark in New Haven in November.

“We haven’t forgot that game,” senior tri-captain Nicole Corriero said. “But it’s the ECAC semifinals, and we just want to win, not for any other reason than that it’s the semifinals.”

In that game, standout junior netminder Love posted 48 saves to stymie the Harvard offense, floundering without absent international starts Julie Chu and Sarah Vaillancourt, and lift her team to the win. Love is the kind of inconsistent goalie whose stats may not be gaudy but certainly holds the potential to dominate any game. The result snapped the Crimson’s 39-game winning streak in the series.

“We have to try to get a lot of shots on [Love],” Corriero said. “And quality shots, so she can’t get into a groove.”

Harvard, however, as the Bulldogs found out in the January rematch, is a different team now than it was in the fall, when the defeat at Yale set off a string of six losses in the span of a month. At the Bright Hockey Center in late January, the Crimson vengefully pasted Yale 11-2, delivering its biggest offensive output and largest margin of victory of the season.

And Harvard hasn’t dropped a game since the end of that early-season skid, running the table in 2005 to amass a 17-game unbeaten stretch and earn the top seed in the ECAC tournament as the conference’s regular season champs.

According to head coach Katey Stone, though, the Crimson took a step backwards in the quarterfinals against Clarkson last weekend, perhaps playing down to a weaker opponent, perhaps distracted by Corriero’s collegiate goal record chase, and can not afford to continue to play at that level as the playoffs wear on.

“We got the record out of the way,” Stone said. “I think it was a big distraction. And in practice we keep sharpening the tools. Our kids are ready.”

If Harvard can overcome the Bulldogs on Saturday, it will earn itself a date with either the Big Green or the Saints in the final at 2 p.m. the following day. Incidentally, those are the two teams against which the Crimson has turned in its best performances of the season, and shares the richest and most dramatic recent histories.

“Those are the kind of games you really get up for,” Stone said. “When it’s a regional rival or a league rival, there’s more juice in the tank, and it helps getting fired up.”

This time around marks the fourth time in five years all three teams have advanced to the semifinal stage. Harvard won the tournament last season after being eliminated by Dartmouth in each of the preceding four. Although the top two seeds appear to be on a collision course once again, St. Lawrence stands in the way, owners of an 8-3-1 record over the Big Green in their last 12 match-ups and undefeated against Dartmouth in post-season play.

Regardless of which of the two teams the Crimson will face in the finals, Stone’s bunch will be the hotter team of the two. The Big Green, dealing with its annual injury woes, limps into Schenectady with a 5-4 mark over its last nine games, while the Saints have posted a meager 3-2-2 record in its last seven. Harvard has played a major role in those struggles, downing Dartmouth home-and-home and skating to a 4-4 tie with St. Lawrence in February. That draw proved a rare recent non-victory for the Crimson, 15-0-2 in the calendar year.

“We know that when we play them,” Corriero said. “It’s going to be a great game and a tough game, a challenge, and really exciting to play in.”

The implications of these meetings extend beyond pride and bragging rights. A tournament crown for Yale would miraculously keep its season alive, garnering it an automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament, while multiple wins for either Harvard or St. Lawrence would likely push them into position to host its opening-round contest.

Stakes aside, the familiarity of these foes ensures games that are expertly prepared for and closely contested. And with all that is on the line as the weeks wind down to the Frozen Four, expect a memorable two days of hockey.

“If you want to compete for a national championship,” Stone said. “You have to play hard and tough hockey in the playoffs.”

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