Women's Hockey Claims Victory Over Yale on Senior Night

Playing its last regular season home game of the year in front of a raucous home crowd for Senior Night at Bright-Landry Hockey Center, the Harvard women’s ice hockey team (13-9-2, 10-6-2 ECAC) picked up a victory over ECAC and Ivy rival Yale (10-14-1, 9-8-1) by a 4-1 margin.

“We were ready to go right off the bat.” Harvard coach Katey Stone said. “I thought it was a pretty great atmosphere, awesome intensity in the building. We made a few adjustments from last night to today…. We took 42 shots but we took some really good shots.”

The Crimson outshot the Bulldogs by a 42-24 margin and co-captain Emerance Maschmeyer picked up the victory while making 23 saves in between the sticks. The performance was a solid bounce back for the senior in her first start since being pulled after the first period of the Beanpot semis.

“Having this game, they had a few good chances so I can’t complain about that,” Maschmeyer said. “It was huge coming off of the loss on Tuesday in the Beanpot…. Today we needed the win to get confidence heading into these next few weekends.”

Sophomore Chelsea Ziadie opened the scoring for the Crimson at the 4:15 mark, as the blueliner sent a rocket from the slot past Yale goaltender Hanna Mandl to score her first-career goal. Classmate Karly Heffernan and junior Sydney Daniels picked up the assists.

Harvard held on to the lead until Eli forward Phoebe Staenz’s individual effort evened the score for Yale. After gaining control of the puck in the neutral zone, the junior streaked down the right side before crossing in front of Harvard co-captain Emerance Maschmeyer and sending a backhand into the mesh.

After being tied at one apiece going into the second stanza, it once again took less than five minutes from the beginning of the frame for the Crimson to find the back of the net, albeit via a recently unlikely source. After Yale’s Jordan Chancellor was sent to the box for an interference penalty, it took all of ten seconds for Harvard to capitalize as rookie Nikki Friesen scored her first-career goal and set off the siren from just outside the crease.

The Crimson looked impressive on both ends of the power play after struggling with the man advantage the night before.

Prior to Friesen’s tally, Harvard had failed to convert its previous 25 penalty opportunities since a power play score against Cornell on Jan. 8. On the other end, the Crimson killed a slashing penalty on Heffernan to shut down Yale’s only penalty chance of the game after failing to kill the game-tying penalty the night before against Brown.

“We went back to simplifying, really defining people’s roles without freelancing a lot and trying to get a big shot presence from our point and we did that,” Stone said. “You hope they work and they worked for us today.”

The Harvard lead doubled later in the frame, as sloppy play from Mandl allowed Heffernan to bang in her sixth goal of the season. D’Oench sent a rocket from the left at Mandl, who failed to control the puck, allowing it to fall to Heffernan for the goal.

Yale continued to pressure the Crimson and looked to have pulled one back late in the third frame, as a stray shot nearly made its way into the mesh before Maschmeyer’s skates prevented it from going in. After review, the referees confirmed the shot had been failed to make it past the line.

Shortly after the save, Heffernan picked up her second goal of the night as the Sherwood Park, Alberta native bagged an empty netter after Mandl was pulled by Yale coach Joakim Flygh in an attempt to get a goal back. D’Oench was credited with her second assist of the night.

“Playing with Miye and [Sydney] it’s pretty easy.” Heffernan said. “They get pucks to the net and I just go to the net and I happened to be there when Miye shot the puck and on the last one, Miye chipped it into the zone and it was an open goal so I just went for it.”

After the game, the Crimson celebrated an impressive senior class comprised of Maschmeyer, D’Oench, co-captain Michelle Picard, Mary Parker, and Jessica Harvey. While the Class of 2016 was honored in its final home game of the regular season, Stone insists the members will be back in Bright-Landry as the Crimson battles for ECAC playoff home ice.

“We’ve got a lot of hockey,” Stone said. “Our seniors have been great and obviously some have made an incredible impact on the program. We’re just going to try and play as much hockey as we can down the stretch and get as far as we can in the playoffs and play for them. That’s what you do at this stretch of the season."

–Staff writer Julio Fierro can be reached at julio.fierro@thecrimson.com.