Sophomore winger Tammy Shewchuk can take over a women's hockey game at any time.

That's what she did in the third period at UNH Dec. 6 in the game that gave Harvard the No. 1 national ranking for the first time in school history. With 6:33 left in regulation and the Wildcats leading 2-1, Shewchuk came out of nowhere to intercept a UNH pass at the blue line.

Then she walked through the Wildcat defense, broke free for a shot inside the right face-off circle and sent the puck top-shelf to tie the game.

Then the native of St. Laurent, Quebec, gave the Crimson the lead for good 52 seconds later by feeding freshman winger Jen Botterill in the left corner to set up the rookie sensation's game-winning goal.

Although Botterill secured the victory at UNH, the Canadian counterparts are tied for the ECAC Plead with seven game-winning goals each.

Shewchuk came through in crunch time again in Sunday's ECAC Tournament championship victory over the same UNH squad--a team Harvard will likely face again in the national championship game Saturday. She tied the game with 75 seconds left in regulation and fed co-captain A.J. Mleczko the game-winning assist 75 seconds into overtime to give Harvard its first conference championship in school history.

"The less I think about the score of the game or how much we need a goal, the better it works on the ice," Shewchuk says. "Some people say that when I'm playing you can't even read my face because I Just have a blank expression."

"When I'm going in on a goalie, all I'm looking for is the net, not the goalie, the defensemen or anything else. Sometimes it goes in and sometimes she makes the save, but whatever happens, I just go for it."

Shewchuk has gone for the net many times this season, and she has converted on 50 of her shots. Her two nearest competitors in the nation--linemates Mleczko and Botterill--are 14 and 17 goals behind her, respectively.

"Tammy Shewchuk has a nose for the net and somehow gets it done, whether it's a pretty goal or a garbage goal," says Harvard Coach Katey Stone. "There are some kids that are inherent playmakers and there are some kids that absolutely score goals, and Tammy is a natural goal-scorer. She's a good skater, she's quick, savvy, has very good hands and finds her way to the net. She is always a threat."

That threat has terrorized opposing netminders for five hat tricks this season. Shewchuk has also won two ECAC Player of the Week awards and made the conference Honor Roll in five other weeks. Such accolades earned her a spot on both the All-ECAC and All-Ivy League First Teams.

Shewchuk was also one of 10 nominees for the Patty Kazmaier Award--women's hockey's equivalent of the Hobey Baker Award. She was not among the three. finalists, however, as it appears that USA Hockey is reserving this year's Kazmaier Award for Mleczko, who has been the sparkplug behind many of Shewchuk's goals.

Those achievements have made Shewchuk an integral part of the nation's longest winning streak at 28 games, although she missed three games during that stretch. She was playing with Botterill on the Canadian Under-22 Team when the Crimson played Boston College and Dartmouth Dec. 18 and 19 and she missed a Jan. 2 game against Maine for disciplinary reasons.

With 100 points this season, Harvard's shortest skater is second only to the 5'11 Mleczko among the nation's leading scorers. Shewchuk admits that her official height of 5'4 is "generous," but she makes up for her lack of size with her quickness and her ability to light the lamp at a frightening pace.

"I never think of size as a disadvantage because women's hockey is still a very open, fluid game," Shewchuk says. "I played full-contact a couple of years ago with boys in Montreal who were 6'2 or bigger, so size doesn't intimidate me. When you're short you have to be fast, and I like to think of my smallness as sneakiness. I can slip behind people a little easier than taller players. In some ways I have to take two strides when everyone else only needs one, but you learn to get past that and I haven't thought about my size for a long time."