W. Hockey Wins Weekend Pair

Usually, it’s taboo to tinker with what’s working, but after a late-game comeback 4-3 victory over Colgate on Friday night, the Harvard women’s hockey team slotted sophomore Julie Chu as a center on the second line in its contest against Cornell Saturday afternoon.

The result was a more decisive 6-0 blanking of the Big Red.

“It’s still early enough to figure out what’s going to be best for the team—what’s going to be best come March,” co-captain Angela Ruggiero said.

In No. 3 Harvard’s (17-2-1, 8-2-0 ECAC) narrow escape over Colgate (15-9-2, 6-5-0), Chu registered four assists, including one on Ruggiero’s game winner with 2:11 remaining in regulation.

“The pace of the game picked up in the last five minutes,” Ruggiero said. “We never panicked—we maintained our poise. But we should’ve picked up the pace of the game earlier on.”

With Emily Vitt in goal, and fellow freshmen Jennifer Sifers and Katie Johnston as the left wingers on the first and second lines, respectively, the Crimson threw a different look in its victory over the Big Red (4-15-1, 1-11-0).

“[Crimson coach Katie Stone] is trying to find the players who work the best with each other,” junior Nicole Corriero said.

“By adding Julie to [Jennifer] Raimondi and Johnston’s line, it gives them somewhat of a better playmaker to set them up, to balance things,” she added.

The result was Vitt’s second straight shutout.

No. 3 W. Hockey 6, Cornell 0

Against Cornell, the Crimson posted yet another record-breaking performance in a season filled with a number of them. It marked the 10th time this season that Harvard shutout the opposing team’s offense, tying a school record set just last year.

“After Colgate, we realized that we can’t take any team too lightly,” Ruggiero said. “From the drop of the puck, we were more focused and more intense.”

On top of the lights-out defense and goaltending from Vitt, who improved to 6-0 on the season, the offensive outbreak of late continued on Saturday with a balanced attack not only from the formidable trio of co-captain Lauren McAuliffe, Chu and Corriero—a line that has been racking up point after point recently—but other lines as well.

The freshmen class stepped up, chiming in with three assists and a power play goal from Johnston in the win.

With just over 12 minutes left in the game, Johnston took a pass from Cahow and buried it in the back of the net to give Harvard the 5-0 advantage.

The mixing of the lines proved successful, extending the Crimson’s tear, which began follwing a loss to Princeton just over a week ago, with six goals on the night.

“Princeton was definitely a wake-up call for us,” Corriero said. “It’s been inspirational for us because we know what’s going to happen when we have lapses—to have [Prinecton] in our memory.”

No. 3 Harvard 4, Colgate 3

Just 19 seconds after Colgate forward Amanda Barre seemed to stem the Crimson surge with her second—and game-tying—goal, Ruggiero knocked home the game winner that marked a four-goal flurry within two minutes.

Heading into the third period, Harvard found itself down 2-1 to an unranked team, an unfamiliar position for the Crimson in the last few years.

With the game winding down and no change on the scoreboard, Harvard hadn’t improved its situation.

Then Ruggiero and Chu exploded, registering two goals and four assists to lead Harvard to the victory within the final five minutes of action.

None was bigger than Ruggiero’s deciding goal with a 1:11 left in the game.

“Chu went back to me, and I just took a slap shot,” Ruggiero said. “And I think it deflected off of someone or something and then went right in.”

Chu’s four assists continued her offensive outburst that has helped spur Harvard’s strong week of hockey, all while still feeling the pain from a wrist injury sustained nearly two months ago.

But the late surge reflects Harvard’s inability to put away Colgate earlier in the game.

“We didn’t play our kind of hockey until the last ten minutes,” Corriero said. “We were playing undisciplined defense, not our usual inspired and hard-working hockey.”

Heading into the final stretch leading up to the ECAC tournament, the Crimson will have to work on the areas that put them just a few minutes away from a loss or tie to unranked Colgate.

“We haven’t really been challenged defensively at all,” Ruggiero said. “They put a lot of pressure on us. We need to concentrate on the defensive side of the game more because we are so used to playing the majority in the offensive end.”

Harvard returns to action when they face off against Northeastern in the Beanpot championship at BC Tuesday night at 8 p.m.

—Staff writer Gabriel M. Velez can be reached at gmvelez@fas.harvard.edu.