“We made things a little closer than they needed to be with turnovers and not the smartest plays,” Stone said. “They’re a highly skilled team. They played well. They weren’t going to go away—we had to beat them.”

But it didn’t take the Crimson long to right the ship. In the opening seconds of the third period, Buesser received the puck in the middle of the ice right next to her own bench. The tri-captain skated past all of St. Lawrence’s skaters and fired the puck past Weisz.

Following Buesser’s, sophomore forward Jillian Dempsey scored at the one-minute mark on a nearly identical rush. Like Buesser, Dempsey received the puck next to Harvard’s bench and skated across the ice, outmaneuvering all the defensemen in her way. Unlike Buesser, though, Dempsey released the puck in the center of the offensive zone.

“It was huge, just to set the tone right off the bat,” Stone said of the two goals. “[We] came out with more energy and all of a sudden it was right back up where it needed to be.”

Nine minutes later, Dempsey struck again off a cross-cage assist from tri-captain Liza Ryabkina.

Down four goals, the Saints pulled Weisz to try to even the scoreboard. But the plan backfired when Harvard freshman Marissa Gedman scored from behind the Crimson’s own blue-line to put Harvard ahead by five.

While a second-period slump seemed to put the game in jeopardy, the Crimson was able to dominate play at the game’s crucial moments.

“We’re a team where if we try to do too much, it doesn’t work,” Stone said. “We keep things simple and use everyone, play a team game, we’re in good shape.”

—Staff writer Christina C. McClintock can be reached at ccmcclin@fas.harvard.edu.