Stars on Ice

Ice may be melting around Cambridge, but there’s still time to look back on the hockey season gone by. And that’s just what the Harvard women’s hockey team did yesterday afternoon in Boston.

The squad’s annual awards banquet honored a trio of outstanding players with major awards, and Crimson coach Katey Stone also announced the captains for next year’s team.

After two years of playing the role of solid contributor, Kate Buesser came into her own as a junior, leading the team with 40 points and being named a finalist for the ECAC Player of the Year. It was not too surprising, therefore, when the forward was named the Most Valuable Player of the Harvard squad.

A dependable contributor throughout the season, Buesser was a big part of the Crimson’s ability to overcome both early-season injuries to junior forward Liza Ryabkina and freshman defenseman Kelsey Romatoski and a season-ending one to senior goaltender Christina Kessler. Harvard was third in the ECAC and earned the fourth seed in the NCAA tournament.

One of those stars will help Buesser lead the squad next year, as Ryabkina and Buesser were named tri-captains for 2010-11 along with junior defenseman Leanna Coskren.

Kessler took home the John Dooley Award, which honors sportsmanship, enthusiasm and devotion to hockey. The all-time winningest goalie in Crimson history set the NCAA career save-percentage record with a .9414 mark and was nominated for the Kazmaier Award in her final, injury-shortened season.

The final award winner was senior Randi Griffin, who was named the team’s Most Improved Player. Griffin, fourth on the team in scoring at season’s end, just got better as the season went on, exemplified in four-goal performance—which included her first career hat trick—on the last weekend of the regular season.