Ready To Skate In NCAA Tourney

After a near-perfect season in which the Harvard women’s hockey team tore through the best competition that its conference had to offer, the Crimson now takes its game to the national stage.

No.1 Harvard faces off against the No. 8 Dartmouth Big Green tomorrow afternoon at the Bright Hockey Center in the first round of the NCAA championship.

The Crimson met few obstacles in its path to the NCAA tournament, finishing the season 31-1-0 overall and 20-0-0 in ECAC play. Averaging over 3.56 goals per game and only .91 against, Harvard left nothing up for chance.

With such impressive statistics, the Crimson has no reason to change its strategy moving in to the playoffs.

“Just play our game and focus on our team,” junior Sarah Vaillancourt said. “That is what we have done all year.”

Vaillancourt, a gold medalist with the 2006 Canadian Olympic hockey team, was recently nominated as a top-three finalist for the Patty Kazmaier Award—an honor that is given to the top women’s college hockey player in the nation each year.

In the regular season, Vaillancourt led the conference and ranked fifth in the nation in total points, with 23 goals and 32 assists for 55 points.

Tri-captain Caitlin Cahow led a stingy Harvard defense, while also contributing on the offensive side. She notched 34 points as a defenseman, the second highest in the country at her position, and also ranks second in the country with 12 power play goals.

But the Crimson possesses more than just scoring power. Sophomore goalie Christina Kessler holds the NCAA single season shutout record with 12 and leads the nation in every statistical goalie category—Kessler boasts a 0.97 goals against average and a .956 save percentage.

The Big Green has its fair share of talent as well. Maggie Kennedy, Jenna Cunningham, and Sarah Parsons are each in the top six in total points in the ECAC.

“I think we are expecting them to have their best game of the season,” Cahow said. “With that in mind we are going to try to prepare ourselves to play our best game of the season and put forth an effort that surpasses some of our efforts in the past.”

Harvard faced Dartmouth twice in the regular season and managed a win each time.

In their first match early on, the Crimson won in a close contest, 2-1.

“The first game we played was early in the year, before we had defined what our season would be like,” Cahow said. “We struggled quite a bit.”

But in late January Harvard faced the Big Green again, this time shutting it out, 4-0.

“We did a great job defensively which is sort of been our bread and butter all season,” Cahow said. “And we were able to dominate offensively. I see those two games as a progression for us through the season. So hopefully we will only get better.”

Despite the Crimson’s two wins against Dartmouth, Harvard will not be taking the Big Green lightly.

“[Crimson coach Katey Stone] always says these two [regular season] games don’t mean anything,” Vaillancourt said. “But the fact that we won the ECAC championship doesn’t mean anything either. This is a new season. Everybody is right back at the start.”

Harvard is currently riding a hot streak, having just torn through the ECAC championship that Vaillancourt alluded to.

Yet, even with this season’s success, the Crimson’s climactic fall last year is still in the back of everyone’s minds. In the first round of the NCAA tournament last season, Harvard faced Wisconsin and fell in a heartbreaking quadruple-overtime loss to the Badgers.

Now, the Crimson finds itself in the same game, albeit with a different opponent.

One big difference between this season and last is that Harvard now has home ice advantage. While last year the Crimson traveled to Madison, Wis.,tomorrow’s matchup against the Big Grenn will be skated in Cambridge.

“[The crowd] is a seventh player on the ice for us,” Vaillancourt said. “Everyone knows that and everyone wants home advantage. We deserve it. It’s something we have worked for.”