The Brown women's hockey team had one of those days when nothing seems to go right.

While the Bruins sat in Providence on Saturday afternoon whiting for a night game, their Harvard counterparts sat in the locker room at Bright Center waiting for their opponents to show up for a 2 p.m. start.

And by the time Brown finally hit the ice in Cambridge five and a half hours later, things only got worse.

That's because Harvard, after playing one of its best gams of the season in a 4-2 victory over Yale on Friday, just kept rolling along and drove to a 3-2 victory.

The win boosted the Crimson into a tie for first place in the lvy Longue with nome other than Brown--a squad Harvard (now 7-5 overall, 5-2 lvy) has defeated twice, thanks to a 6-4 decision in November.

The Camabs wrapped up their biggest lvy weekend of the year in the sweetest way imaginable--a--two-game sweep that left them closer than ever to capturing their first-ever league crown.

So what the Bruins were up against was a Crimson squad whose designs on that elusive title would have been foiled by a loss Saturday.

"It was a very tense game because we knew how much we have to win it," said Crimson blueliner Christine Burns. "There was a lot of pressure on the defense."

A good deal of that pressure came merely from the presen of Brown dout forwards Lise and Mardic corcoran.

with 17 on the senson, and three-time lvy Player of the Work Cor, with 10 provide the Brulns with a sedring "Punch dedly enough to keep any defen on full .

"They can s really well, but our team backchecked a lot and prevented many possible shots," explained Harvard center Liz Ward "They couldn't be quite as effective as they wanted to be."

As a matter of fact, the Crin son got on the board first, Ward tappe the puck to left wing Kelly Landry following a faceoff, and Landry Knocked it past goalie Mara Spoulder to put Harvard up, 1-0.

Then, with only a second remaining in the first period, a brown breakaway goal evened up the score and the squads to the locker room knotted at one.

"We were a bit slow at first," noted freshman forward Karen Carney. In the second stanzas, however, Ward sparked the squad with a beauty of a goal.

Faking around the defenders she pulled Spo out on the left side of the . With the emire right

open, Ward started to wipe out but managed to flick the puck into the empty net at the last moment.

"I backhanded it in just as I was falling down--and then I crashed into the boards," said Ward.

After the pesky Bruins responded with a goal of their own. Carney and Landry decided to take charge.

The dynamic duo took the puck down ice and found themselves in a two-on-two situation. Landry passed to Carney along the blue line, and the freshman quickly sent it back across to Landry, who took a shot on Spaulder.

When the Bruin netminder couldn't control the puck. Carney skated in and drove the rebound into the open side of the net.

"I felt fantastic," said Carney. "That's the best goal I've scored all year."

For the remainder of the contest, the gusty play of Crimson goalic Tracy Kimmel and the squad continued ability to Bishop and Corcoran kept Brown at

"We have played much better said, Burns. "I don't think we played up to our full potential, which we did against Yale."

But for the moment, none of that really matters.

What matters is that Harvard's chances of winning that Ivy League championship are better than they've ever been in the seven year history of the Crimson women's ice hockey program.

Only three Ivy games - against Princeton. Cornell, and Dartmouth--remain on the schedule, and the Crimson defeated the Ingers and the Big Red carrier in the season.

"We have to beat Dartmouth--that's a big game." Burns said.

Unit then, a bad day for Brown has capped one of Harvard's best days and best weekends ever