Wisconsin Upsets Harvard On the Road
November 26, 2004 | Women's Hockey
No. 5 Wisconsin upset No. 4 Harvard on the Crimson home ice Friday, 6-4. Game two of the Harvard Shootout at the Bright Hockey Center in Boston featured the two closely ranked teams in a fast-paced and physical game. The win marked Wisconsin's tenth win of the season and sets its record at 10-3-0 while remaining 7-3-0 in WCHA play. Harvard dropped just its second of the season falling to 6-2-1, 6-2-0 in the ECACHL.
Despite the holiday, neither team suffered from post-Turkey Day sluggishness as five goals were scored in the opening stanza. Wisconsin started things off with a goal at 4:22 from Sara Bauer. Sharon Cole and Lindsay Macy added the helpers on the Badgers' first goal of the afternoon.
With overlapping penalties, Wisconsin relented after fighting a minute of a five-on-three Harvard power play. Wisconsin's penalty-kill looked strong but a quick shot from Nicole Corriero slipped behind Meghan Horras' right skate for the score. The Crimson would score again just two minutes later to take the lead.
Penalties would remain a factor for the Badgers as they marked a season high-tying 12 penalties on the day.
Kristen Witting took a seat in the penalty box at 14:07. Wisconsin 's penalty-kill was in full effect and successfully killed the time. On the first shift back at full-strength, Macy crashed the net for a goal at 16:23.
With just 49 seconds left in the first period Sara Bauer sped down the ice firing a cross to Macy on the right side to finish the deal. The Badgers regained the lead heading into the first intermission.
In the second, Jackie Friesen broke loose from the Crimson defenders and cruised down the ice towards Crimson goalie Ali Boe, launching the puck into the net at 7:59.
Clearing the puck on a Wisconsin power play, Corriero pushed the puck towards the Badger goal for the Crimson's first shot on goal of the second, 11 minutes into the period. An unexpected statistic as Harvard had outshot the Badgers 28-16 in the first. The next shot Corriero lined up at 12:17 closed the gap to just one goal.
Corriero completed her third hat trick of the season with a power-play goal at 9:31 in the third for the equalizer. The big game for Corriero would not translate to a big day for the Crimson as Nikki Burish put the Badgers in the lead once again with Meaghan Mikkelson lending a hand at 13:20.
Just over two minutes remained in the contest when Harvard head coach Katey Stone called her skaters to the huddle during a timeout. Moments later Harvard tried to get an edge by pulling Boe and sending another skater into Wisconsin's end of the ice.
Harvard took a penalty at 18:34 and put Boe back in the net, but 30 seconds later brought her back to the bench in hopes of extending the game. The move did not go according to Harvard's plan as Grace Hutchins broke out from the pack and scored Wisconsin's sixth goal, unassisted, on an empty net to solidify the upset for the Badgers.
In the net, Horras faced a daunting 43 shots from the Crimson attack. She batted away 39 and inked a new career-high in saves as well as shots faced. For Harvard, Boe marked 24 saves.
Wisconsin faces another non-conference opponent, Northeastern on Saturday beginning at noon.
Head Coach Mark Johnson Post-Game Quotes, 11/26/04
On the win: It was a great road win. We did a good job of killing penalties when we needed to and scored timely goals. It was a good win. The kids played hard and competed and did a lot of the little things that you have to do. They won faceoffs, blocked shots and the end result is that they got rewarded with a good victory. It was a big win for our program, but we've got to come back tomorrow, but it's a huge win.
On the confidence it can bring heading into the Minnesota series next weekend: We've got to come back tomorrow and play well, but then get back and get ready ourselves ready. We don't play until Saturday afternoon and in this business you can only take one at a time and try not to look ahead too much. The big thing is to try to get better and each game get a little better as you go along. Next week we have Minnesota, but tomorrow we've got to focus on Northeastern. It's good to play top-notch teams like this, you know. It's good to play Harvard in their building and beat them
