In its first home double-header of the season, the Harvard women’s hockey team faced off against Ivy League opponents Brown and Yale. The Crimson came off a two-week break ready to jump further into Ivy play and looked to gain a foothold in the ECAC against two sub-.500 teams.

But the time off was not without its unfortunate developments: the team lost tri-captain and top-line center Lexie Laing to injury, and later learned she would be out for the rest of the season.

Nevertheless, Harvard (3-1-1, 3-1-1 ECAC) rallied to pick up three of four available points through the weekend.

Against Brown (1-7, 1-5), nine different Crimson players tallied points in a 6-3 triumph—but the contest was closer than the score suggests, as the Bears trimmed down a 5-0 deficit in the last eight minutes of the game. That same third-period slowness caught up to Harvard against Yale (2-4-2, 1-3-2), when the Bulldogs erased the Crimson’s 2-0 lead for a 2-2 tie that overtime could not decide.

“We obviously were looking for two wins,” tri-captain Haley Mullins said. “We never want to tie or lose to an Ivy League team, but we’re a young team.”

HARVARD 2, YALE 2

In Saturday’s afternoon matchup, the Crimson played host to Ivy rivals, the Bulldogs. Yale had opened its Ivy League play the day before and emerged with a 5-1 win over Dartmouth.

While Harvard was having a strong second period on Friday against Brown, so were the Bulldogs in their own contest—two of their goals came during the middle frame against the Big Green. Though Yale’s record was less than stellar coming into Cambridge, it still brought an explosive offense up against the Crimson.

“Yale’s not going to go away,” said head coach Katey Stone. “It’s a great matchup, and I thought their goaltender did a great job [too].”

The visitors’ opportunistic, quick-strike offense was what made Harvard pay for sitting back on a two-goal lead late in the second period.

At 16:42 of the middle frame, Yale senior forward Eden Murray controlled a faceoff in the Crimson’s zone and fed her freshman linemate, Greta Skarzynski, in the slot. Skarzynski worked past the Harvard player marking her and chopped the biscuit between Crimson sophomore netminder Beth Larcom’s pads. The play underwent a long review, but was ultimately ruled a goal, cutting Harvard’s lead in half.

Later, with just one minute to play in the game, Yale junior forward Emma Vlasic crept into the high slot and fired the puck at the goal; Larcom was screened and never had a chance. Tied 2-2, the game would go to overtime.

“We had command of a large part of the game, in many different areas,” Stone said. “We let it slip away a little bit at the end there.”

Earlier, the Crimson got out to a lead by putting on a sharp power play late in the first frame, keeping up near-continuous play to tire out Yale’s penalty killers. Just as the penalty was expiring, Harvard sophomore defender Ali Peper fed sophomore Val Turgeon right across the crease—the east-west play allowed Turgeon to find the open net for the 1-0 lead. Turgeon’s goal also played spoilsport to the Bulldogs’ impressive penalty kill, good for third in the nation before the game began.

The opportunities continued for Harvard to start the second, mostly because of the aggressive, fast play of its top two forward lines. On a rare fourth-line shift, though, senior forward Dani Krzyszczyk stole the puck from a Bulldog defender deep in Yale’s zone, peeled away to the slot, and went flat and far-side past Hofmann, putting the Crimson up 2-0.

Overtime began at a thrilling up-and-down pace, but no much in terms of scoring chances. Harvard registered no official shots on goal in the extra five minutes—the closest opportunity was a snipe from freshman forward Becca Gilmore that got the glass. The Bulldogs tested Larcom twice, but to no avail. The final score was 2-2.

“We need to have that energy until the last minute of the last period of the weekend,” tri-captain Haley Mullins said. “But we’re not worried. We know it’s early in the season.”

HARVARD 6, BROWN 3

On Friday evening, the Bears opened their Ivy League season against the Crimson at Bright-Landry Hockey Center. Brown has been a struggling team thus far, as it has lost by three goals or more in all but two of its contests, including Friday’s matchup.

The first period proceeded with up-and-down play. The Crimson’s discipline woes continued, as it took three penalties through the opening 20. But the Bears were unable to capitalize on those advantages, including a 5-on-3. Despite Harvard’s productive power play, which ranked fourth in the nation coming into play, the Crimson too could not find the net in their time with the man advantage. The closest attempt for the visiting team built off a 2-on-1, with Larcom making a save with the shaft of her stick amidst cheers from her bench. Both teams were scoreless after 20 minutes.

“I thought we were really slow starting,” Stone said. “We didn’t have any sort of rhythm in the first period at all.”

It took the Crimson just three and a half minutes into the second frame to find that rhythm. A scramble in front of Brown sophomore netminder Calla Isaac resulted in Harvard junior forward Bradley Fusco shoving the puck past the goal line. Fusco’s first tally of the season gave the team a 1-0 lead, and was assisted by Gilmore and sophomore Kat Hughes.

From then on, the Crimson virtually set up shop in the Bears’ blue paint, playing in the offensive zone even while on the penalty kill. Harvard’s aggressive attack eventually paid off again 11 minutes into the second. Circling around the left wall, junior Kaitlin Tse passed to Turgeon at the near corner of the left circle. Turgeon was all alone, and slotted a fast shot past Isaac, short-side, to put the Crimson up, 2-0. Harvard stayed on top to finish the period up by two.

The score did not stay that way for long.

Early in the second, two Crimson freshmen stepped up—Keely Moy swooped down the right wing all alone, dangled in the slot, and beat Isaac high glove four minutes into the frame. Less than a minute after her, Brooke Jovanovich fished the puck of out a net-mouth scramble and and tucked it away to give Harvard a 4-0 lead. T

he shots kept coming for the Crimson, and so did the goals for Jovanovich, who fired a shot past an already-down Isaac into a wide-open net five minutes later. Though the tally was reviewed for goaltender interference, the call on the ice stood. Jovanovich’s first multi-goal outing put Harvard up 5-0.

The game could conceivably have ended with that score, with Larcom picking up a well-deserved shutout. But the Bears did not sit back, matching the Crimson shot for shot, and, most importantly, capitalizing on Harvard’s mistakes.

Brown notched three quick goals in less than four minutes to bring the count to 5-3. One was off a confusion in front of the net with Crimson defender Emma Buckles partially screening Larcom, and two were on separate two-player advantages. The game saw 13 penalties altogether, some of which Stone believes were “tough calls”—particularly those late in the third that led to the Bears’ partial comeback.

“You can’t call everything,” Stone said. “[But] we exacerbated it with another penalty—then you’re back in a 5-on-3. That’s definitely an area of concern.”

To its credit, though, the Crimson was able to wrest back momentum after the setback. The final nail in the coffin for Brown was a high-glove wrister from the right circle by Mullins.

“It was great to have us come right back and score the sixth goal,” Stone said. “[Mullins] earned every bit of that tonight...she played her heart out. I was glad to see her put that cherry on the top of the cake.”