Women's Hockey Marches All Over Rival Saints

Against the country’s top scoring offense, it was the No. 5 Harvard women’s hockey team that piled up the goals, punishing No. 3 St. Lawrence, 5-1, Saturday afternoon at Bright Hockey Center.

The Crimson (6-0-0, 6-0-0 ECAC) received scores from five different players, as goals came from senior tri-captain Caitlin Cahow, juniors Sarah Wilson and Jenny Brine, sophomore Anna McDonald, and freshman Kate Buessuer.

For the Saints (9-3-0, 5-1-0), their high-octane offense was frustrated by a tight Harvard defense and sophomore goalie Christina Kessler, managing just 22 shots on net and one goal on the day.

“We scored one goal in the first [period], two in the second, and two in the third,” Cahow said. “That kind of momentum is something we’ve really been working towards—maintaining offensive intensity while not giving up very much in the defensive zone.”

At the start of the weekend, Harvard, St. Lawrence, and Dartmouth sat tied for first in the league with eight points each through four games.

But the Crimson’s commanding 5-0 win over No. 10 Clarkson and the Saints’ 4-3 triumph over the No. 8 Big Green on Friday night made Saturday’s contest a true battle for supremacy in the ECAC.

With the victory, Harvard, the only undefeated team remaining in the nation, assumes sole possession of first with 12 points, while St. Lawrence and Dartmouth sit in second with 10 points apiece.

“It’s all up in the air this year,” Cahow said. “The league is wild and that’s what makes it so exciting.”

After four straight shots from the Saints to open the first period, McDonald put away a pass from Wilson at the 10:26 mark to shift the momentum decidedly in the Crimson’s favor for the rest of the game.

In the opinion of two of the team’s stars, Harvard’s explosive offense is ignited on the other end of the ice.

“It starts from the defense out,” Kessler said. “We took care of the D zone to generate opportunities on the offensive side.”

“Defenseman have been making great first passes on the breakout and also have been very consistent in moving the puck through the neutral zone,” Cahow said.

A perfect example came just 24 seconds into the second period.

Cahow hit junior forward Sarah Vaillancourt with a pass from the defensive zone. Vaillancourt carried the puck up the ice and returned it to Cahow streaking on net for the score.

Minutes later, freshman Katharine Chute stopped a Saints charge in the neutral zone and cleared to puck to Wilson, who put one past St. Lawrence goalie Meaghan Guckian at the 3:09 mark.

Just under four minutes later, the Saints’ Chelsea Grills snuck a shot past Kessler to trim the Crimson’s lead to 3-1 and halt the sophomore goalie’s bid for a fourth straight shutout.

Harvard had three power plays late in the second but did not score agains until early in the third, when Buesser linked up with fellow freshman Deborah Conway.

After peppering Guckian on five unsuccessful power-play opportunities, the Crimson’s man advantage finally bore fruit with under four minutes left in the game, when Brine followed the rebound on a shot by junior Kati Vaughn to make the score 5-1.

The trend of the game for Harvard was converting would-be St. Lawrence offensive opportunities into scoring chances of its own.

“It was rare that they got great opportunities in our end,” Cahow said. “Most often when they made mistakes coming up the ice, we were up in the play...and were able to give the puck to our forwards.”

Kessler denied all three of St. Lawrence’s power-play chances, and now leads the nation with a 0.83 goals-against average and .960 save percentage.

“We knew that St. Lawrence was going to come out and possibly dominate,” Kessler said, “but I think it went the opposite way.”

The Crimson continues its tough late November schedule with a clash against archrival Dartmouth tomorrow night. The puck drops in Hanover, N.H. at 7 p.m.

—Staff writer Rebecca A. Compton can be reached at compton@fas.harvard.edu.