After Nagano, Ruggiero and Botterill began making official visits to different schools, most of which were in the ECAC.
They later met while on a recruiting trip to Brown. The two internationals hit it off and exchanged phone numbers.
"We were in touch throughout the whole process of traveling to schools and making the pick," Ruggiero said. "I'm not going to say that we chose Harvard together, but we talked about the different schools a lot."
The transition to Harvard was hardest on the academic front, since both players had been away from the books for a considerable amount of time.
Hockey, however, was not a problem. Although Ruggiero and Botterill found the ECAC to be a little slower than the international level, both recognized the high level of play that Harvard faced on a weekly basis and easily made the adjustment.
The two discovered they work especially well in tandem on the power play.
With Ruggiero at the center of the point and Botterill on her left on the forward's off-stick side, the combination is intuitive.
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