While campaigning for the title, Mercyhurst had Harvard on the brink of elimination in the NCAA Quarterfinals. Corriero rose to the occasion, scoring four of Harvard’s five goals—including the game-tying goal to force overtime—as well as assisting on the final game-winner in triple-overtime.

Then, as so many other times this season, she had the fans on their feet chanting, “Scor-ri-ero.”

But for all she accomplished this season on the ice, one goal remained out of reach.

Down 4-3 with time running out in the NCAA Championship game, the Crimson was desperate for an answer. In fitting fashion, Corriero had one last shot to keep Harvard’s title hope alive. With four seconds remaining, she received the puck at center ice, turned to her left, and fired a shot from the blue line—only to see it blocked by Minnesota defenseman Lyndsay Wall.

“As the clock was winding down I took that shot and I knew it had only a one-in-a-million chance of it actually hitting the net, let alone going in,” Corriero recalls. “And I actually fell after that shot and thought, ‘Oh my gosh, not again.’ It’s heart wrenching—extremely sad and really emotional. But you’ve got to just get back up.”

Though she admits a national championship has been her ultimate goal for the past four years, Corriero doesn’t wonder “what if.” Instead, she’s ready to walk away from the game.

“I hate it how the past two years it didn’t matter what our records were, what we had done. All we could think about was that one game where we didn’t do what we set out to do,” she says. “I didn’t want that to happen to us this year, because in the process we have been doing so many amazing things and if we just forget them all because of one game, that’s just silly.”

While she may have come up without the title, she can walk away from the game satisfied that she left everything on the ice this season.

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