"Ninety percent of the game is mental," Yadao says. "My coaches have helped to focus and improve my game."

The efforts paid off. In the last seven games of the season leading up to the NCAA tournament, Yadao allowed just seven goals, a remarkable achievement.

In the ECAC tournament finals against Princeton, Yadao came up with several aggressive saves to insure the 2-1 victory.

Yadao also sees herself as an anomoly of sorts in Harvard athletics. She eschewed the government-history-economics route most of her peers take, choosing to concentrate instead in fine arts.

She will use her training this coming year, to teach an art history course in a British high school this fall as part of a Memorial Church fellowship. Yadao has also participated in CityStep, and claims that dancing with kids was one of the great thrills of her Harvard experience.

"Working with others has always been a high priority for me," Yadao says. "I'm interested in a lot of things other than sports."

Conformity, to be sure, isn't one of them.