"It's always difficult when you're playing a man down or a man up," D'Oench said. "Either way, we adjusted well and did what we needed to do."

Helping to stop Yale’s opportunities on the man advantage was junior goaltender Emerance Maschmeyer. The All-American netminder played a full 60 minutes for Harvard, making 23 saves on the night.

Stone attributed the depth of her team to good recruiting and the team's internal competition.

“It’s a Division I hockey program, and you want to have internal competition,” Stone said. “It’s good for everybody, and it's paying dividends for our team.”

Harvard came into the contest having beaten Brown, 6-1, the night before. On its last conference road trip back in November, the Crimson had been struggling to prove itself as a competitor in the ECAC and on the national stage, picking up a loss and a tie to St. Lawrence and Clarkson respectively.

But even now as its record and statistics improve, the Crimson remains focused only on improving itself.

“The number one goal is to just keep getting better, individually and collectively,” Stone said. “[That means] taking more ownership, stepping up, [and] playing to their capabilities. We’ve asked each kid what they can bring every day, and that’s what we expect from them.”

—Staff writer Isabel DeLaura can be reached at idelaura@college.harvard.edu.