One goal games are the proverbial mother-in-law the Harvard women's hockey team.

Going into last night's game against Yale, Harvard had a 2-7 record in one-goal contests.

But one of those wins was against Yale, a 2-1 win in December.

And last night at Bright, it happened again, Harvard (7-12-2 overall, 3-4-1 Ivy) pulling out a hard-fought 2-1 victory.

This game was dominated by physical play mostly on Yale's part.

While individuals showed athletic virtuosity at times, the action was dominated by dirty work with sticks and fists.

"[Yale] makes up for a lack of skating ability by grabbling and sticking," sophomore forward Sara Simmons said. "They get to be such pains in the ass. You get suckered into retaliating."

The Crimson was pleased to win, but unhappy with the type of game that was played.

"I'm glad that game's over, it was a really frustrating game," Co-Captain Kim Landry said. "Yale's kind of a cheap team. I really don't enjoy playing them.

"We won, so we have to be pleased. We can win the rest of our games if we pick up the level of our play to what it was before," Landry said.

Despite the grappling, Harvard jumped to an early lead on an unassisted power play goal by junior Francie Walton at 8:52 of the first period.

Walton skated up the left side from the blue line, faking two defenders and flipping the puck into the upper right corner.

While Yale had dictated the offensive momentum up to that point, Harvard began to control the puck on their offensive side.

Junior Joey Alissi narrowly missed a score on a pass from freshman Stacy Kellogg. Later, at the 14:35 mark, Landry hit the left side of the post.

But at 7:36 of the second period, Yale took advantage of a power play to even the score on a goal by defender Eve Rose, assisted by Yalies Katie Michel and Kathy Jones.