In the first three months of play, the Harvard women’s ice hockey team suffered losses, losses, and still more losses. In the first 11 games, the Crimson emerged victorious exactly once— against Dartmouth in late October.

Nevertheless, the outlook was hopeful when Harvard rung in the new year. In the team’s last game of 2016, the Crimson had tied No. 7 Colgate, 3-3, to halt a nine-game losing skid.

Harvard’s 2017 timetable wasted no time in providing a new challenge. On Jan. 6, Harvard tripped to Hamden, Conn., to square off against No. 8 Quinnipiac and then visited Princeton for a Saturday matinee.

The matchup with the Bobcats (15-5-4, 8-3-2) marked yet another ranked opponent on Harvard’s schedule—the Crimson has battled eight teams in the top 25 so far. Both the Tigers (12-6-2, 8-4-1) and Quinnipiac were familiar foes, having defeated Harvard earlier in the season by scores of 2-1.

The Crimson improved slightly on those earlier results. This time Harvard left the back-to-back contests with a tie and a loss.

“We played really hard in both games,” junior defenseman Chelsea Ziadie said. “Our team came out really strong in the first period…and that was one of our team goals.”

PRINCETON 2, HARVARD 1

Harvard failed to build upon the positive momentum it generated in the final third of its match against Quinnipiac. This time, it was the opposition who had the last laugh.

Despite entering the third period with a one-goal lead, the Crimson conceded two scores in the final 20 minutes en route to defeat. Three costly penalties, including a bench minor for too many players on the ice, hampered Harvard’s third period performance, as Princeton junior forward Kiersten Falck ultimately delivered the final blow on the power play.

“[Power play opportunities] are game changers,” Ziadie noted. “We’ve lost some games by one goal when we’ve been on the [penalty] kill and the other team has scored…. Even in the second period, there was a point where we were getting penalties, and the momentum shifted.”

After a goalless first frame, the Crimson opened the scoring in the second period courtesy of sophomore defenseman Kaitlin Tse’s stick. The man-up tally was the only blip in an otherwise stingy game for Tigers freshman goaltender Steph Neatby, whose 32 saves helped her improve to 6-1-0 on the season, good for the second-best win percentage in the ECAC.

The Saturday afternoon showdown was otherwise closely contested as each team notched a power play goal. Harvard emerged with a slim margin in shots (33-31) and faceoff wins (27-26) while both teams frequented the penalty box—the visitors six times and the hosts five.

Compared to its season average, the Crimson well surpassed its shots per game mark of 24.2 but was destined for a collision course with a hot goaltender who answered all but one attempt. Harvard’s relative scoring success on the road this year—1.67 goals per game as opposed to 1.40 at Bright-Landry—was not enough to crack the code of Neatby’s four-by-six safe.

“Off of those [33] shots, we had a ton of rebounds, and we didn’t take advantage of them,” Ziadie lamented. “One of the areas of our game that we wanted to improve was shooting a lot…and the next step will be to get to those rebounds and capitalize on those opportunities.”

On the other side of the ice, Harvard senior goaltender Molly Tissenbaum is still in search of her first victory of the season, as she moved to 0-7-0 after defeat at the hands of the Tigers. The Toronto native boasts a solid .925 save percentage this season but has not received the goal support from her skaters needed to outpace her 2.82 goals against average.

HARVARD 2, QUINNIPIAC 2

Harvard entered the final frame of regulation trailing the Bobcats by a goal. But the Crimson erased this late-game deficit thanks to freshman forward Kat Hughes, who buried her third score of the season on the man advantage with four minutes remaining. Junior forward Lexie Laing and senior defenseman Abbey Frazer notched assists on the power play equalizer.

“Coming back in the third period was huge,” Ziadie said. “Being able to take advantage of the power play—the opportunity to have them—is really important.”

Quinnipiac made Harvard pay for its two first period penalties and opened the scoring on freshman defenseman Kate MacKenzie’s power play strike. Having cashed in with the extra man, the Bobcats entered the intermission with a one-goal lead and a 12-2 advantage in shots on goal.

The second period saw even strength goals from both teams, including an opening minute score from Crimson co-captain Sydney Daniels, who found the back of the net from outside the right faceoff circle. Mere minutes later, Quinnipiac responded with a snipe of its own, regaining the lead—one which it would hold until Hughes’ clutch tally in the final minutes.

“In any game…it’s about bouncing right back and bringing the pressure to the other team,” Ziadie said, emphasizing that importance of “having that mentality to go back and get another [goal].”

In the middle period of Friday night’s game, Ziadie and her teammates were victims of that approach.

Overtime began with a flurry of Bobcat shots, all of which Harvard’s freshman netminder Beth Larcom, in only her second career start, deflected to safety. The extra time frame ended much the same way it started, but this time Crimson co-captain Briana Mastel took goaltending matters into her own hands, blocking two crucial shots during Quinnipiac’s final possession in its offensive zone. Larcom came to the rescue during a last-minute penalty shot attempt for Quinnipiac, which she stuffed at the doorstep after some nifty stick work from Bobcats freshman Kenzie Prater.

“[The penalty shot] was really exciting for Beth [Larcom]. She did a great job,” said Ziadie, applauding the work of her rookie netminder. “Again, we hope those situations don’t happen, but when they do, we know that our goalies are prepared for them.”

Although significantly outshot, 29-18, Harvard held its own against the Bobcats in faceoff wins, with the hosts holding just a two-win edge, and remained equally as disciplined, with each team taking three penalties on the night.

The Crimson boasts an all-time record of 18-5-3 against Quinnipiac, but recently the Bobcats have matched up relatively evenly with Harvard, as eight of the past nine meetings have been decided by one goal or less. The Crimson owns a 4-3-2 record over that span.

Additionally, with the overtime finish on Friday evening, Harvard has seen six of its past nine games require extra time, marking the only such stretch of overtime thrillers in program history.

On the weekend, freshman forward Val Turgeon led all Crimson scorers with a pair of helpers while contributing seven shots to Harvard’s total on Saturday. For the orange and black, sophomore forward Karlie Lund, reigning ECAC Rookie of the Year and First-Team conference selection, padded her lead in conference-wide point scoring (16-15-31) with a goal and an assist in Saturday’s match.

— Staff writer Spencer R. Morris can be reached at spencer.morris@thecrimson.com.