In a prelude to the Frozen Four, the No. 2 Harvard women’s hockey team enters the ECAC semifinals and finals in Schenectady, N.Y. this weekend, hoping to capture the league title and, more importantly, effectively clinch a spot in the Big Dance on ice.

The semi-finals feature three Ivy League teams. In the first game, the Crimson (27-3-1, 15-3-0 ECAC) dukes it out with Brown (18-10-2, 12-5-1), with the victor playing the winner of the game between St. Lawrence (26-8-1, 15-3-0) and Dartmouth (24-5-2, 14-3-1).

Brown qualified for the semifinals after edging Princeton 3-2 in overtime of the second and deciding quarterfinal game, after a hard-fought regular season in which the Bears overcame a string of early losses to finish fourth in the ECAC.

“They started slow and have come on strong, and its nice to see them in the final four,” Harvard coach Katey Stone said.

Harvard swept two games from the Bears during the regular season. After jumping out to an early 3-1 lead, the Crimson took the first game 5-2, only to struggle to a 4-3 overtime victory on a Katie Johnston goal in the second.

“Brown-Harvard matchups have been awesome, so we’re looking forward to it,” Stone said. “We’ve played them in two close games.  Our kids aren’t going to have any trouble getting up for [the game].”

Part of Harvard’s success will hinge on solving Brown goalie Katie Germain, who enters the weekend with a 2.46 goals against average and came up with some big saves in the two teams’ earlier encounters.

“She’s extremely good when she gets into her zone,” junior Nicole Corriero said. “The key is to score early and set the tone for the rest of the game.”

“They’re a good strong team with a great goalie, and I think we need to just work on burying shots in front of net,” co-captain Angela Ruggiero said.

After a combined three goals—one of which was an empty-netter—to close out the regular season against Yale and Princeton, Harvard rediscovered its lethal offensive arsenal in the ECAC quarterfinals against Cornell, outscoring the Big Red 13-2.

“We’re reaching our peak right now as a team,” Ruggiero said. “We’ve played so well together and the lines are finally solidified.  It doesn’t matter who we play, and we won’t change our game, but we’ll get psyched.”

Win or lose against Brown, Harvard will have to make a quick adjustment from the Bears’ style of play to that of either St. Lawrence or Dartmouth.

“Whereas St. Lawrence has one really good top line, Dartmouth has two, sometimes three top lines,” Corriero said. “Against St. Lawrence, we’d have to shut down their top scorers and work on solving Rachel Barrie. But if we get Dartmouth, we’d have to shut down a lot more players.”

But Dartmouth’s intimidating lines—responsible for handing Harvard two of its three losses this season—don’t keep the Crimson from wanting to get back a bit of revenge.

“We’d love to play either team, because they bring out the best of us—the higher competition does that to you,” Corriero said. “But it’d be extremely nice to get another shot at Dartmouth.”

Despite all the whirlwind surrounding this weekend and its Frozen Four implications, though, Stone hopes her team can stop for a moment and take in all the playoff atmosphere has to offer.

“The next two weeks are going to be intense, but we really want them to enjoy themselves and just soak up the whole thing,” Stone said. “You don’t always get to do these kinds of things as a college athlete. You don’t want to get caught up in it, but you certainly want to enjoy it.

“No matter what happens, it should be exciting.”

Harvard faces off against the Bears in the ECAC Semifinals tomorrow at 1 p.m. The league championship game will be played Sunday at 12 p.m.

—Staff writer John R. Hein can be reached at hein@fas.harvard.edu.