Her name rarely runs in the headlines and she is often over shadowed by her olympic medal-winning teammates.
Last week, however, the No. 3 Harvard women's hockey team had no bigger hero than senior winger Kiirsten Suurkask.
It was not a dominating performance. It was not even spectacular. But there have been few bigger goals scored for Harvard in the past two years.
With 9:03 remaining in regulation and the Crimson trailing 2-1 to No. 1 Dartmouth last Saturday, Suurkask scored the game-tying marker to put Harvard back in the game.
Suurkask's goal set up the eventually game-winner by co-captain Jennifer Botterill just minutes later, but more importantly, it turned the game around.
Dartmouth's Carly Haggard had just scored the go-ahead goal 1:36 earlier to take the momentum away from the Crimson.
Sitting in the stands, it was if someone had popped a balloon and all the energy in the arena had just gone out with it. Harvard was going to lose another one-goal game to Dartmouth and the drought against the nation's top-team would be extended to five games.
Then she scored that goal and everything changed.
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