Slow Start Dooms Harvard As RPI Gets Another Upset Win

The last time the Harvard women’s hockey team saw Rensselaer on the ice, the Engineers were celebrating the overtime victory that sent them to their first-ever ECAC championship game.

Back then, the Crimson was stunned as its season ended unexpectedly. But when Rennselaer picked up its second-ever win at Bright Hockey Center on Saturday, Harvard wasn’t quite as surprised.

The Engineers (10-10-5, 7-4-3 ECAC) scored two early goals and never looked back, handing the No. 6 Crimson (10-5-4, 8-5-2) a 4-2 defeat.

“[It’s] very disappointing,” Harvard coach Katey Stone said. “I was really hoping that our kids were going to come out with a lot of urgency and fire, and we were flat early on and played catch-up all game.”

Rensselaer controlled the first 10 minutes of play, getting on the scoreboard less than two minutes after the opening whistle.

From a scrum in front of the net, Engineer Laura Guillemette picked up an Allysen Weidner rebound and buried it for her first collegiate goal.

Rensselaer’s Laura Gersten was credited with the secondary assist, the first of her three points on the afternoon.

The Crimson took two consecutive penalties in the opening minutes, and at 8:06, Rensselaer broke through again.

Gersten, high in the offensive zone, took a pass from Allison Wright and beat Harvard rookie netminder Laura Bellamy for the 2-0 lead.

The Engineers had 10 shots on goal before junior Kate Buesser got the puck on net nine minutes into the game.

“We were back on our heels, and we’re not that kind of team,” Stone said. “We’ve got to get on our toes and get after it and stay aggressive.”

Harvard came back in the second half of the period, ripping 12 shots before the first intermission. And with just over a minute to play in the opening frame, co-captain Cori Bassett cut the deficit in half.

Fresh off the bench, Bassett scooped up a loose puck and let a slapshot fly from just inside the blue line that sizzled over Engineer netminder Shannon Ramelot.

“That’s a big goal,” Buesser said. “As a defensive team, you never want to give up a goal like that, and it gives us a lot of momentum going into the second period.”

The Crimson picked up its play in the second frame, outshooting Rensselaer, 20-8. Harvard’s defense also came together, tightening up after its early-game lapses with a number of blocked shots—the most impressive from Bassett, who dove across the crease to redirect a puck away from the net.

“We play very good defense, but that doesn’t mean we want to play defense,” Stone said.

But for all of the Crimson’s shots in the second, it was the Engineers who came away with a goal.

Seven minutes into the period, a trio of Rensselaer players broke towards the goal, catching co-captain Kathryn Farni in an odd-man rush.

Gersten wound up with the puck on her stick and placed it in the top right corner of the net for the 3-1 lead.

But Harvard hung tough, picking up its offensive game in the third to create its best scoring chances of the contest.

The Crimson’s top line had plenty of looks at the net, including one from junior Katharine Chute mid-period that required a beauty of a glove save from Ramelot. And with 3:40 left in the game, the line’s chemistry finally translated into results.

Dempsey brought the puck up the left side of the ice and unleashed a shot. Ramelot made the initial save, but Buesser was there to slam home the rebound.

“Dempsey, I think she had like four people on her and was able to finagle her way out of there,” Buesser said. “Every player knows that if you shoot for the far pad it will pretty much go right out to the middle, and it rebounded right to me.”

With the score 3-2, Stone pulled Bellamy with just under a minute to play. But Harvard couldn’t net the equalizer, and with 30 ticks left on the clock, Engineer Alisa Harrison scored an empty-netter to secure the win for Rensselaer.

Bellamy made nine saves in the third on her way to a career-best 25-save performance. She will get plenty of chances to top that mark, though, as senior Christina Kessler’s season is over due to injury.

“I’m sure she’d like a couple back, but [Bellamy] did a real good job in the third period keeping us in the game,” Stone said. “She’s got to grow up fast, and she needs to take advantage of this opportunity. You’ve got to look at it as an opportunity, you can’t look at it as a bummer.”

But with just seven league games remaining, the Crimson will need to play better from top to bottom to maintain its third-place conference seat.

“I don’t think we played how we wanted to play by any stretch of the imagination,” Buesser said. “We’ve got to get back to practice and start playing the way we know how to play.”

—Staff writer Kate Leist can be reached at kleist@fas.harvard.edu.