After two goals in the first period, the play settled down into a back and forth affair of which neither team could completely grab a hold.

A stifling Brown forecheck forced Harvard into whirling the puck back behind its own net many times, slowing down the pace of play and keeping the Crimson from throwing shot after shot on goal.

In fact, Harvard only managed 29 shots on goal through three periods of play—one of the fewest totals this season. The level of offensive play climaxed in the second period as Ruggiero set the tone right off the opening faceoff by flinging a shot from the center line.

Brown had the perfect chance to put itself in the driver’s seat late in the second period when junior Jessica Link—who was coming off a hot streak in which she tallied three goals and an assist in last weekend’s series against Princeton—found herself with the puck right in front of sophomore goaltender Ali Boe. Before Link could lift the puck over the right leg of the sprawled out goalie, Boe pounced on it with her glove and stuffed Brown’s opportunity.

A period earlier, the explosive Link had broken through the Crimson defense to create the Bears’ lone goal.

“I just kind of took a slapshot at the net and it hit off one of the Harvard defensemen,” Link said. “I went to it and I saw Keaton [Zucker] out of the corner of my eye, cutting to the net, and I just gave it to her.”

Harvard’s first goal came on its early push to open the game. Five minutes into the first frame, Ruggiero took the puck up the right side of the ice and had her shot from the side blocked by Germain. Corriero shot the bouncing rebound again—with the puck flying up in the air, over Germain, and landing right on Brown’s goal line. But before the referees called a goal, in swooped Lindsey Glennon to save the day—only to find Harvard freshman Jennifer Sifers who passed off to free Ruggiero on the right side of the net for an easy open wrister. Ninety minutes later, the Crimson put through its second score of the day, capping an emotionally and physically exhausting affair that brought them to the brink of its second ECAC tournament championship.

“I don’t think this takes anything out of us; it’s playoff hockey, and sometimes you have to go to the end of the world to go to the next day,” Stone said.

—Staff writer Gabriel M. Velez can be reached at gmvelez@fas.harvard.edu.