Team Notes: Harvard Readies for Home-and-Home with Dartmouth
The Particulars
The Crimson take on the ninth-ranked Big Green of Dartmouth in a
home-and-home series this weekend. Friday's game marks the first
time Harvard has played at Bright Hockey Center since Oct. 30, a
4-2 win over Brown.
Follow From Home
Harvard will provide live statistics for this weekend's games, all
home games and most road contests this season. Video is
available for both games this weekend, and links can be found on
the women's hockey schedule on GoCrimson.com.
Series History
Dartmouth represents the Crimson's oldest rival, as Harvard has
faced the Big Green 74 times since 1978. Dartmouth holds the edge
in the all-time series as Harvard owns a 33-39-2 all-time record
against it's Ivy League rival.
Harvard has had success in recent years against the Big Green,
earning wins in six of the last seven meetings, including a pair
last season. Harvard skated to 3-2 and 4-1 wins against the Big
Green in 2009-10, after dropping the final meeting of the 2008-09
season by a 3-0 score.
Last Time Out
Down a goal with less than five minutes to play, the Crimson
managed to level the score and force a 2-2 tie with league foe
Princeton, Saturday afternoon at Baker Rink. Senior forward Katharine
Chute netted both goals for the Crimson as
classmates Liza
Ryabkina and Kate
Buesser picked up assists. Freshman goalie Lauren
Joarnt made 20 saves in her first collegiate start a night
after holding Quinnipiac scoreless in the final period of a 4-1
loss.
About Dartmouth
Dartmouth vaulted to No. 9 in the national rankings this week,
thanks to a pair of overtime road wins over Princeton and
Quinnipiac last weekend. Dartmouth also picked up a win in a
midweek matchup against No. 10 Providence, downing the Friars, 3-2,
on Wednesday night. The Big Green comes into the Harvard series
with a 6-1-0 overall record and 5-1-0 conference mark.
Sophomore Sasha Nanji leads all Dartmouth scorers, and all
defensemen nationally, with 10 points (7g, 3a) after a career
outing last weekend. Nanji netted her first career hat trick on
Friday against Princeton, had a goal and an assist against
Quinnipiac Saturday and was named ECAC Hockey MLX Skates Player of
the Week. Amanda Trunso (5g, 4a) and Camille Dumais (3g, 6a) have
nine points each, and freshman goalie Lindsay Holdcroft boasts a
4-1-0 record along with a .877 save percentage and 2.58 goals
against average.
Harvard Coach Katey Stone
Katey Stone, the Landry Family Head Coach for Harvard Women's
Hockey, is in her 17th season as Harvard's head coach, and she
holds a 341-146-29 career record, the most all-time victories
in Division I women's hockey. Stone has led Harvard to all eight of
its NCAA tournament appearances and was named the head coach of the
U.S. Women's National Team in the summer of 2010.
Crimson Captains
Leading the Crimson are three senior captains: Kate Buesser
(Wolfeboro, N.H.), Leanna
Coskren (Walpole, Mass.) and Liza Ryabkina (Kharkiv,
Ukraine).
New Faces
Seven freshmen are donning the crimson, black and white this
season. The class of 2014 is comprised of goaltender Lauren Joarnt
(White Bear Lake, Minn.),Kalley
Armstrong (Maple, Ont.), Lyndsey
Fry (Chandler, Ariz.), Marissa
Gedman (Framingham, Mass.), Gina
McDonald (New Brighton, Minn.), Elizabeth
Parker(Acton, Mass.) and Jackie
Young (Medford, Mass.).
Silver Stone
Katey Stone returns to the Harvard bench after missing the last
four games due to her committment to the U.S. National Women's
Team. Stone led Team USA to a silver medal at the 2010 Four Nations
Cup in Newfoundland, Canada this past week. Stone's squad swept
through pool play, downing defending champion Canada, 3-2, but fell
to the Candians in the gold-medal game by a 3-2 score in overtime.
Former Harvard players Caitlin Cahow '08 and Julie Chu '06-07 were
on the U.S. roster, as well as current sophomore Josephine
Pucci (Pearl River, N.Y.).
Hold Your Fire
In 18 periods of regulation hockey so far this season, Harvard has
only allowed double-digit shots six times in a given period.
Against Yale, Harvard limited the Bulldogs to 13 shots in the game
including just three in the second period. Brown managed 15 total
shots and fired just two on net in the second stanza. Harvard held
Colgate to just two shots in the third period in a 3-1 win and also
held Quinnipiac to just two shots in the third period of a 4-1 loss
last weekend.
Harvard has yet to allow more than 30 shots to an opposing team in a game this season. The Crimson is averaging 33.5 shots per game to its opponents' 20.8 and is outshooting its opponents 201-125 through six games. Harvard's 201 shots on goal on the season is the highest total in league play.
A Playoff Push
With the sweep of Princeton in the ECAC quarterfinals last season,
Harvard extended its streak of consecutive ECAC Hockey semifinal
appearances to 12 seasons. During that stretch, Harvard has faced
Dartmouth a number of times in the conference playoffs. During the
2007-08 season, Harvard hosted Dartmouth in the quarterfinal round
of the NCAA tournament, downing the Big Green, 5-1, to advance to
the Frozen Four in Duluth, Minn.
The last time the two teams faced each other in the ECAC
Hockey tournament was during the 2005-05 season. Harvard traveled
to Hanover, N.H., for the league championship game and downed
Dartmouth, 4-1, en route to an appearance in the national
championship game, where the Crimson fell to Minnesota, 4-3.
Dartmouth defeated Harvard two years earlier in the ECAC Hockey
championship game by a score of 7-2.
