Hockey

What could have been an enjoyable trip to Ithaca, N.Y.--something that seems to occur with amazing infrequency--turned into a major disappointment Saturday when the Harvard women's ice hockey squad dropped its first game in a month.

Not even the fact that the icewomen had avoided the Boston snowstorm could alleviate the pain of the 6-3 Cornell win. After all, the Big Red had shut down a Crimson squad that had recorded three consecutive shutouts, had been averaging eight goals a game since January and had been steadily creeping up in the Ivy standings.

The loss dropped the Crimson record to 7-6 over-all and 3-4 in Ivy play. More importantly, though, the loss also dealt a serious blow to Harvard's Ivy title aspirations. The icewomen fell to fourth place in the league with only three league games remaining.

"We were actually having a real good trip," Crimson Captain Alex Lightfoot said. "We even played well through two periods, but after that I don't know what happened."

Trailing 3-2 after two stanzas, the Crimson appeared about read, to break the game open in the third. "We'd outplayed them through two," Assistant Coach Bill MacDonald said. "And it really looked like we were going to take control in the third."

But the tough Cornell squad held the icewomen's passing game in check in the final 20 minutes, not allowing a shot on goal until only six minutes remained. By that time, the Big Red had quietly put the game out of reach.

"We managed only three shots on goal in the entire third period," MacDonald said. "You can't expect to win when you don't get any shots."

In fact, the icewomen managed only 15 shots in the game, their lowest output of the year. And on the other side of the ice, Cornell took 37 shots."

"We always seem to have a tough time getting more than 20 shots against a good team," MacDonald added. "It's really been our major problem all year. We'll just have to keep working on it."