No. 5 Crimson Cruises Past No. 3 Saints in First-Place Showdown

Photo by DSPics.com

Box Score

CAMBRIDGE, MA - Five different Crimson players scored goals as the No. 5 Harvard women's hockey team defeated No. 3 St. Lawrence, 5-1, Saturday afternoon in a matchup of the top two teams in the ECAC Hockey standings. It was the Crimson's second convincing defeat of a top-10 team in less than 24 hours.

The Saints (9-3-2, 5-1-0 ECAC Hockey) entered with the nation's top scoring offense, but it was the Crimson (6-0-0, 6-0-0) that showed its offensive firepower-and balance. Junior Sarah Wilson set up Harvard's first goal and scored its third. Sophomore Anna McDonald, senior Caitlin Cahow, freshman Kate Buesser and junior Jenny Brine also found the net for the Crimson. Junior Kati Vaughn and freshman Liza Ryabkina had two assists each.

Sophomore Christina Kessler gave up a goal for the first time in four games but made 22 saves to help Harvard remain the nation's only unbeaten team and hand the Saints their first league loss. Meaghan Guckian made 31 saves for St. Lawrence.

The Saints had four of the game's first five shots, but the Crimson turned things around at the midpoint of the first period. Wilson took the puck from St. Lawrence star Sabrina Harbec on the right-wing boards. She hit McDonald with a pass as the sophomore crashed the net from the left. McDonald put the puck in the net for her second goal of the season.

The goal started a stretch of nine straight shots for Harvard, including five shots on a power play. The Saints eventually killed the penalty and got a great chance to tie the score when Carson Duggan took a pass and crossed to her backhand but was stoned by the right pad of Kessler. Harvard, which did not allow a shot on goal on an early SLU power play, finished the period with an 11-6 advantage in shots and a 1-0 lead.

Harvard doubled the margin just 24 seconds into the second period. Junior Sarah Vaillancourt and Cahow exchanged passes as Harvard moved up the ice. Vaillancourt carried the puck into the SLU zone and hit Cahow in stride from left to right for a backhander out of the reach of Guckian.

Wilson made it 3-0 with another great play less than three minutes later. Freshman Katharine Chute broke up the SLU rush in the neutral zone and got the puck to Wilson with some momentum. The junior deked past a defenseman at the blue line, giving her a breakaway. Wilson waited for Guckian to go down and roofed a shot over the goalie's glove.

The Saints threatened to get on the board on a deflection by Marianna Locke, but the puck hit the left post. Chelsea Grills finally broke through for the Saints at the 7:06 mark, taking a pass from Brittaney Maschme and slipping a shot through an Alison Domenico screen and past Kessler. The goal broke a scoreless streak of 233 minutes, 19 seconds for the Crimson.

In the third period, the Crimson once again gave itself breathing room with an early goal, as Buesser took a pass from Deborah Conway on the rush and snuck a shot by Guckian less than two minutes into the period.

The Saints held Harvard without a power-play goal for much of the day, but the Crimson scored on its 18th power-play shot of the day. Guckian stopped Brine's tip of a Vaughn shot, but Brine put in her own rebound for Harvard's final goal. The Crimson killed all three SLU power plays to extend its streak of successful penalty kills to 20.

The Crimson faces its third ranked opponent in five days Tuesday, when it visits rival Dartmouth.