COACH OF THE YEAR, RUNNER-UP: Katey Stone, Women's Hockey

Whenever a team loses one of the best players in the world, it is hard to match its previous success.

Nevertheless, the Harvard women’s hockey team returned to the NCAA championship game after losing Angela Ruggiero ’04 due to some superb coaching by Katey Stone.

“I think we are going to be good, but good is the enemy of great,” Stone said at the beginning of the season.

After recognizing the team’s weaknesses, Stone created an entirely new workout regime that emphasized the maintenance of speed and quickness throughout the third period.

With this new scheme in place, Harvard ran off a 19-0-2 streak to make it to the national championship game before losing to Minnesota by a heartbreaking 4-3 tally.

—Staff writer Gabriel M. Velez can be reached at gmvelez@fas.harvard.edu.