“If we spend time thinking about Corriero, then Vaillancourt will score a goal. If we spend time thinking about Vaillancourt, then Corriero or Chu will score a goal,” Dartmouth coach Mark Hudak said following Friday night’s game. “If we spend all our time thinking about those three, another line will score a goal.”

Corriero’s assist on Vaillancourt’s goal bears a striking resemblance to the team’s evolution this season, one in which Corriero bore most of the weight for most of the early games. But as the season progressed, Harvard won more games, Corriero has had more help, and the Crimson’s prospects are looking brighter, going 13-0-2 in 2005, winning twice over rival Dartmouth and garnering both ECAC and Ivy titles. Harvard has accomplished this feat only twice before, in 1999 and 2003. One season led to a national championship, the other led to a triple-overtime defeat in the final game.

“It’s sort of the most unlikely story, but we turned things around and it worked out for us,” senior Ashley Banfield said.

“This whole season has just been an amazing lesson on how much you can accomplish when you guys are working as a team,” Corriero said.

On an afternoon when Harvard celebrated Senior Day and its 400th victory in program history on home ice, it might have been perfect timing for Corriero to end her regular season playing career and break the scoring record. Fate isn’t always so accommodating. But if Harvard’s success continues, Corriero will finally get some recognition that even in this season has been rather lacking.

Throughout her career, Corriero has never received the respect she should have as one of the top players in the game. So, consider it poetic justice that future generations, when looking back at the record books, might very well see her name atop the single-season goal record.

More so still, for a season in which most had written off Harvard’s chances after a dismal showing in November, Corriero and company are still gunning to do what past stars in Harvard’s past could not accomplish: go out with a championship.

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