Women's Hockey To Open NCAA Playoffs at Home Against Quinnipiac

For the third year in a row, the Harvard women’s hockey team has punched a ticket to the NCAA tournament. Following a 7-3 win over Cornell in the ECAC Championship game Sunday, the Crimson clinched the No. 3 seed and home ice advantage for the first round of the tournament.

“Hearing we got the number three seed was pretty exciting,” junior goalie Emerance Maschmeyer said. “Getting any kind of seed in the tournament is a great feeling, just knowing you’re in the NCAA tournament. No matter what seed we got, we knew it was going to be a great opportunity.”

Harvard (25-5-3, 16-4-2 ECAC) will be facing off against ECAC rival Quinnipiac (26-8-3, 15-5-2) at 4 p.m. at the Bright-Landry Hockey Center on Saturday. This is the first time in program history that the Bobcats have made it in to the tournament, while this trip marks the 11th time the Crimson has punched a ticket.

For Harvard, the stage set for the opening round will be full of familiarities, as Saturday’s showdown on home ice is the fourth time the Crimson will have faced Quinnipiac this season. Most recently, the teams met each other in the semifinal round of the ECAC playoff on March 7, where Harvard was able to skate by with a 2-1 win in overtime.

In fact, the last two times these teams have taken opposing benches, the games have required an extra frame of play.

“They’re not a super flashy team,” freshman forward Karly Heffernan said of the Bobcats. “They work hard, and I think that’s kind of our game too. They’re a good team to play against, and we’ve gone into OT against them two games in a row, so we can expect something like that again.... Hopefully we can jump out and get the first goal, which usually leads us to a win.”

Scoring early has not been the Crimson’s strong suit in the games leading up to the tournament. Both the ECAC playoff matchups Harvard played in last weekend saw the Crimson go down early, 1-0, in the first period, forcing the team to play catch up with its opponent.

This weekend, with the season on the line, coming out with a dominant performance in the first period will be key for the team to move on in the tournament.

“I think getting the first goal is always key,” Maschmeyer said. “It’s tough when they score first because you have to shift the momentum. As a goalie, it’s not a good feeling, but you have to move on and make the next save or in the offensive case the next play.”

Throughout the season, Maschmeyer has been an essential component to Harvard’s success. In the 23 games she has appeared in for the Crimson, she has allowed only 33 goals, averaging one-and-a-half goals scored against per game. Her .941 save percentage has landed her just a hair behind Clarkson goalie Shea Tiley’s save percentage of .942 for the best in the conference.

On the offensive side of the puck, Harvard has seen contribution come from a spread of players across different lines. Senior defenseman Sarah Edney, junior forward Miye D’Oench, and junior forward Mary Parker were all awarded spots on the ECAC All-Tournament team, tallying four, three, and five points, respectively, during last weekend’s games. Parker leads the team in total points with 37, while D’Oench’s 19 goals in her junior campaign is tops on the team.

One of the Crimson’s strengths throughout the season has been its ability to convert on man-up advantages during power plays. During the season, the team has been able to score a power play goal almost a quarter of the time, with the percentage coming in over 25 percent when looking at conference games.

On the other side of the coin, all three of the Big Red’s goals against Harvard on Sunday afternoon came off the power play, leaving work to be done in situations where the team is shorthanded.

“We can focus on our penalty kill and power play a lot [in practice] because we can expect to have some power plays and penalty kills against them because it’s always an aggressive game when we play,” Heffernan said.

After coming off of a long road trip for the ECAC playoffs, the Crimson has the advantage of skating on home ice in the opening round of the tournament.

“With home ice you have our home fans which is great because the energy is always awesome in our rink,” Maschmeyer said. “Just the familiarity with having our own locker room and being able to do our own warm up is great, and it’s what we want because it’s what we always have [that] makes it great to play at home.”

Ultimately, the No. 3 bid puts Harvard one step closer to the goal set at the beginning of the year—to be contenders for a national championship. A win means advancement to the Frozen Four, while falling to the Bobcats would bring an end to the Crimson’s season.

“We’re a pretty good team when it comes to playing in do or die situations,” Heffernan said. “We are good at playing desperate hockey, so I think we’ll have the advantage and momentum going in.”

—Staff writer Ariel Smolik-Valles can be reached at asmolikvalles@college.harvard.edu.