The lead held into the second period, when Dartmouth finally woke up just as Harvard fell asleep.

First, at 5-36, Karin Clough scored a power-play goal in retaliation, sliding a hard shot along the ice past Kimmel from the blue line.

Just a minute later, Carol Lewis received the puck from Sudie Naimi inches in from of the net. The senior co-captain shuffled to the left, shuffled to the right, and then stood still and knocked it in for her squad's second goal.

The third Dartmouth goal came at 14:16, when Lewis looped around behind the net, came up on the right and shuck the puck past Kimmel.

One period, three goals, and there went the game for Harvard.

"We were too slow in reacting in our own end, and they nibbled away and beat us," Dooley said. "In the third period the kids came back and fought like hell--we had a couple of golden chances that we just couldn't finish off."

Dooley, usually not given to much experimentation, decided to load up on offense in the final stanza.

He moved freshman Julie Sasner, a defenseman, up to the forward line to skate with Simmons and kelly Landry. On the other line be teamed Dinny Starr, Liz Ward, and Karen Carney.

"I wanted to generate more of fense, take advantage of their second line," Dooley said. "If we could have netted one, we could have gotten the momentum we needed."

The conversion of Sasner, who leads the squad with 22 goals, seemed like a gamble worth taking, despite the risk of overtiring the remaining three blueliners, Jane Kalinski, Christine Burns, and Amy Hartung.

With less than two minutes left in the contest, Dooley called a time-out and pulled out all the stops to try to generate some offensive pressure.

Sixty seconds later, when the Crimson skated back onto the ice, goalie Kimmel stayed behind.

"At that point we just had to get a goal in a hurry," Dooley said.

Unfortunately, the strategy failed, and set up the strangest goal of the season.

The Crimson six skated up the ice, determined to put a shot past Bjork.