Women's Hockey Opens Year With Wins

In a season with several unfamiliar wrinkles, the Harvard women’s hockey team is back in a familiar position—first place in the ECAC. The Crimson (10-5-2, 7-2-2 ECAC) used decisive road wins over Colgate (7-7-4, 4-4-2) and Cornell (5-9-0, 1-7-0) to catapult to the top of the conference standings before taking a hiatus from division play for exams.

“It’s a great feeling,” freshman Jenny Brine said. “It’s definitely one of our goals to be at the top of our league.”

The trip to upstate New York comprised two of Harvard’s mere three games over a 46-day span from mid-December to late January. The team will square off Wednesday night with a highly-touted New Hampshire squad, which dealt the Crimson its first shutout in over four years in a recent visit to the Bright Center. Despite the possible rust acquired over winter vacation and reading period, the victories featured the combination of strong third-period play, an offense and power play in rhythm, and firm goaltending.

HARVARD 6, CORNELL 3

Freshman Brittany Martin got her second career win in net and the Crimson attack continued to thrive on the road as Harvard knocked off the Big Red to complete a four-point ECAC road trip weekend.

Brine was the offensive star for the second straight day, netting two goals and assist while seeming very comfortable in her new roles on the top line and top power-play unit.

“The new lines are working very well,” Brine said. “Everything is clicking on offense.”

Special teams, in a very physical contest that saw each team assessed seven penalties, was the major story with Harvard scoring two of its goals on the power play and adding two short-handed tallies, courtesy of juniors Liza Solley and Katie Johnston.

“Both games were very physical,” senior captain Carrie Schroyer said. “When we’re on the power play, we want to make the most of our chances. And we want to execute, give the offensive effort, even when a man down.”

After Brine’s pair of goals gave the Crimson an early 2-0 edge, Cornell erased the deficit with two strikes in the first five minutes of the second period. Schroyer recaptured the lead for Harvard with a score at the 6:57 mark and Solley potted the eventual game-winner with Schroyer in the box just over two minutes later.

The Crimson stretched its lead to 6-2 with two more goals in the final period, with Johnston and classmate Jennifer Sifers lighting the lamp before the Big Red beat Martin for the third time with less than six minutes remaining.

Martin turned in a 39-save effort in her second start, facing far more resistance than in an easy shutout of Union last month, and regaining her footing down the stretch after a shaky stretch at the start of the middle frame.

“She faced a lot of pressure today from the Cornell girls,” Schroyer said. “And [Martin] did a great job of standing her ground. She was very composed.”

HARVARD 5, COLGATE 1

The Crimson offense picked up right where it left off the 2005 year by overwhelming Colgate on Saturday by a score of 5-1.

Senior Jennifer Raimondi—who has been at the center of most of Harvard’s offense throughout the season—scored the first goal, but Brine put the game away by netting two on the day.

The second of Brine’s goals came on the power play, and both were the results of good positioning on the part of the rookie forward. The Crimson finished the day converting two of its five power-play opportunities.

“Jenny is a very smart offensive player,” Schroyer said. “The goals came off a lot of rebounds—she was right there and there was a scramble.”

Her second goal on the afternoon was the first of three that Harvard put past Raider goaltender Brooke Wheeler in the final frame to secure the win. The goals grabbed the momentum back from Colgate after Kiira Dosdall’s goal in the middle period kept the Raiders in the game.

“Progressively we picked up our speed and connected our passes and started to really make things happen,” Schroyer said. “We developed throughout the game.”

Raimondi kick-started the Crimson offense in the opening frame by stealing a pass at the Colgate blue line and beating Wheeler with just over six minutes left in the period. She also notched two assists on the afternoon.

“I think today we just capitalized on our opportunities,” Raimondi said. “We were putting pucks on net and we had a lot of chances.”

The Crimson defense limited the Raiders to 23 shots for the game, with senior goaltender Ali Boe turning aside all but one. The Colgate goal came on one of the Raiders’ three power plays during the contest.

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

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