Women's Hockey Breezes by UNH

Within the first two minutes of the women’s home hockey game Friday night, sophomore forward Miye D’Oench sent the first of five Harvard goals piercing into the back of New Hampshire’s net, opening the floodgates to the Crimson’s 5-0 victory.

When the Wildcats erred in their defensive end 1:48 into the game, senior Elizabeth Parker deftly passed the puck to D’Oench, who skated free for a breakaway after receiving the pass. Selfless team play resulting in the easy goal foreshadowed the offensive explosion Harvard put on for the Bright-Landry Hockey Center crowd.

“Anytime we can put up five goals on the scoreboard it’s a good thing, and Miye getting that first goal was great,” Crimson coach Maura Crowell said. “We got a lot of momentum off of that. Overall I was really happy with the team’s effort.”

Facing the Wildcats (6-10-2, 2-3-2 WHEA), Harvard (9-1-2, 7-1-1 ECAC) sought revenge on a team that they had tied last season. The victory resulted in the skaters’ second consecutive and sixth overall shutout of the season. The early goal set the tone for the remaining 58 minutes, which saw aggressive play from both teams throughout.

“Any time you get up early it’s helpful,” D’Oench said. “Everyone can play with confidence, and I think that after that we were just relentless the whole game.”

The second goal was a three-pronged effort, resulting in a score from freshman Sydney Daniels, her fifth of the season, off of freshman Abigail Frazer, who received the puck from junior Hillary Crowe, who later scored two goals Friday night.

With conversions from four different skaters, Harvard took advantage of the Wildcats’ errors during the remainder of the contest, with two goals in the second period and one in the third.

“Getting the shutout was huge, and just having scoring from all over has made us successful this season,” D’Oench said. “We’d like to see that continue. It’s really fun to be playing Hockey East teams, and especially to be beating Hockey East teams.”

The Crimson is currently tied for the longest unbeaten streak in the nation, nine games so far, due to strong resistance in the back from the defense and efficient conversions up top.

Despite New Hampshire outshooting Harvard 29-25, the Crimson capitalized on its scoring opportunities. Harvard has only outshot opponents twice this season, with its sole loss coming in one of those two games, and currently sits in first place in the ECAC.

“I don’t know if we take quality shots, versus peppering the goalie with shots, but I’ll take it,” Crowell said. “Stats are fun, but we don’t get bogged down in them. “

Freshman Brianna Laing maintained her second shutout of the season, blocking a total of 50 shots in her two performances on the ice thus far.

“We’ve got such great goalies, both [sophomore Emerance Maschmeyer and Laing], that no matter what, we’re going to play with confidence because we know they’ve got our backs,” D’Oench said. “If anything goes wrong, they’re there for us. Both Emerance and Bri just have battled and worked so hard at practice that I have, and the team has, great trust in both of them.”

The aggression of the third period led to double-digit shots on goal by New Hampshire and eight combined penalties between the two squads, but Laing and the defense never let up.

“I think in her first performance [against Colgate, Laing] showed that she’s better than a backup goalie so we felt like this was a good opportunity for her to get a start, and it worked out pretty well,” Crowell said. “She’s young, she’s played two games, she hasn’t given up a goal. I think she played a good 60 minutes. We definitely had some scares at the end, but she stayed focused and composed and got it done.”

Although the Crimson took eight penalties of its own, the team killed off every one.

“Obviously we want to stay out of the box, but there is something to be said about playing tough and standing up for your teammates,” junior captain Marissa Gedman said. “If we’re winning games, I don’t think it’s that big of a concern.”

After playing two big games this weekend to end 2013, Harvard hopes to continue its success in the remainder of the season.

“We’re excited to be out here playing Hockey East teams,” Gedman said. “We’ve been preparing all year for them so we came out fine and I’m excited about it.”