The Yale icewomen were sitting quietly in their dressing room between the second and third periods of last night's game at Bright Center with the score knotted at 0-0. Bulldog goalie June Mendoza stood up and promised, "Just get me one goal and I'll get the game for you."

The Elis took her up on the offer. Less than a minute into the third stanza the Yale icewomen came through with their half of the bargain. And though the Crimson did manage to slip three goals past Mendoza, the Bulldogs exploded for four more to hang on for a 5-3 win.

"That first goal just let open the floodgates," co-captain Mendoza said after the game.

And during the first two periods of play it looked like those rusty gates might never open. Although the New Haven squad seemed to be spending more time picking themselves off the ice than skating on it, Harvard failed to capitalize on the Eli sloppiness.

Ooops!

"Our passing was way off," Crimson coach Rita Harder said. "We didn't really check until the last ten minutes of the game."

Thus the Crimson's inability to get off more than a handful of good shots. Despite some aggressive skating from freshmen wingers Alex Lightfoot and Vicki Palmer and an impressive performance from junior defenseman Julie Starr, Harvard could not hit the mark.

But then again, neither could Yale. The Bulldogs, who came onto the ice singing and cheering each period, showed a much stronger bark than bite for the first two periods, with skating that looked more like a Marx Brothers extravaganza than a hockey game.

But then came Act III.

After the first "get-psyched" Yale goal came 42 seconds into the final period, both teams readied for attack as the pace of the game quickened. Five minutes later, Eli right wing Julie Garber took advantage of a power-play opportunity with a quick wristshot from the slot.

Before the stunned Harvard team could blink, Garber had tallied again. Not to be outdone by her teammate, right wing Lynn Cruikshank slapped the puck into the net twice in 24 seconds.

But in between those two performances, Lightfoot had bounced the puck off the goalpost for Harvard's first goal of the evening, spurring the Crimson to pour it on during the last ten minutes of the game.

The passes started connecting, the shots started burning, and the Bulldogs almost started to whimper. Freshman forward Rosemary Mahoney sent the puck whizzing past Mendoza, and with only 11 seconds left in the game co-captain Lauren Norton demonstrated some precision stickhandling, notching another Crimson tally.

And then the clock ran out.

After last Friday's opener against B.U.--which also resulted in a 5-3 loss--Harder had sighed, "If they had only hustled like they did in the third period..." She repeated that sentiment once again last night.

"They got all pumped up in the last ten minutes, but..." Harder's voice trailed off again. Then she considered the game's turning point. "That first Yale goal determined the tide."