Part of the Crimson offensive woes can be attributed to the strong play of Engineer goaltender Sonja van der Bliek, who only let one of Harvard’s 19 shots into the net.

“You have to hand it to [Rensselaer’s] goaltender,” Buesser said. “She played an unbelievable game.”

Though the Crimson’s Bellamy let in one more score than her Rensselaer counterpart, she too had a solid game between the pipes.

“[Bellamy] played very well all weekend,” Stone said. “It was a tough second goal, but other than that she was solid.”

On the offensive side, though Harvard didn’t light up the scoreboard, it kept the Rensselaer defenders and goaltender busy all night.

“They don’t have a score sheet for really close chances,” Buesser said. “If we did, we’d be filling that column a lot.”

And though close doesn’t count in hockey, the Harvard coach was nevertheless pleased with the team’s effort.

“There were a lot of good things…but we just need to keep getting better," Stone said. “It’s just going to take a little bit of time.”

—Staff writer Robert S. Samuels can be reached at robertsamuels@college.harvard.edu.