Harvard Eliminates Gophers in Final Four
March 21, 2003

By Brenda Himrich

For the second straight year, the Minnesota Gophers fell in the semi-final game of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Final Four for women’s hockey, this time losing 6-1 to the Harvard Crimson, a team it had beaten early in the season.

The loss continued a string of post-season frustration for Minnesota, which had won the national championship in 2000 under the aegis of the American Women’s College Hockey Alliance but has fallen short since the NCAA took over the tournament in 2001. That was the year the Minnesota hosted the Final Four, one the Gophers missed after faltering in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) tournament.

The Gophers did better in 2002, winning both the WCHA regular-season title and tournament and securing the top seed in the NCAA tournament. However, Minnesota lost to Brown in the semi-final game and then tied Niagara in the third-place game.

Minnesota made it back to the Final Four in 2003, at the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center, coming in as the number-three seed and facing number-two Harvard.

Harvard’s loss to Minnesota in the first month of the season was the team’s last loss for nearly four months, a 28-game unbeaten streak that ended abruptly with a 7-2 loss to Dartmouth in the Eastern College Athletic Conference championship game.

Against Harvard in the NCAA semi-final, Minnesota came out firing but was unable to get the puck past Crimson goalie Jessica Ruddock. “We started strong and had a good first period,” said Minnesota coach Laura Halldorson. “It’s too bad we couldn’t bury one early.”

The Gophers found themselves shorthanded barely a minute into the game as Kelsey Bills was sent to the penalty box for hooking. However, 47 seconds later the Crimson was called for having too many players on the ice.

Minnesota had two more power-play opportunities—the last of the game for either team as there were only a pair of offsetting penalties the rest of the way—in the first period but were unable to capitalize, not even getting off a shot the second time and then failing to mount any kind of sustained offensive effort the rest of the way.

“We dominated the game defensively,” said Harvard coach Katey Stone. “It was all about the one-on-one battles today and we definitely won those. The Gophers are elusive, and we had to put a little body on them and impede their progress.”

Led by Angela Ruggiero and Jennifer Botterill—both finalists for the Patty Kazmeier Award—Harvard outshot the Gophers 13-7 in the first period. Gophers goalie Jody Horak stood up to several point-blank shots. Late in the period, though, Horak was unable to control the rebound after blocking a shot by Botterill in the right circle, Botterill’s fifth shot of the game. Ruggiero and Julie Chu were camped at the goal mouth, and Chu backhanded the loose puck into the net to give Harvard a 1-0 lead with 1:11 left.

The goal that seemed to break Minnesota came only 23 seconds later when Lauren McAuliffe took the puck away from the Gophers and fired a shot over Horak’s left shoulder.

The Crimson added two more in the second period, Chu swooping in on a shot that off the boards behind the net and directing it in before Horak could respond to the carom. With under a minute to play Chu and Ruggiero came down the ice on a two-on-one break. Ruggiero was deep in the right corner when she attempted a pass to Chu in the slot. Instead, the puck hit Horak in the back of the pads and bounced into the goal.

Stone said Harvard did nothing different defensively in the third period, even though each team had only one shot for the first eleven-and-a-half minutes. “What we were doing was working for us, so we didn’t want to change it.

“We’re not the team that needs to be desperate. We’re a hit-the-single team. We’re not interested in making that desperate long-bomb pass because we don’t have to. When you see how many [different players], it’s not from that long stuff, it’s from that tic-tac-toe type of play.”

Gophers forward Natalie Darwitz commented on the defensive prowess of the Crimson, particularly Ruggiero, who was a teammate on the U. S. National team. “Ruggiero controls the whole game,” Darwitz said. “Our line came up, and it seemed like one-on-four every time.”

Darwitz was able to get loose nearly 12 minutes into the final period, taking a pass from behind the net from Ronda Curtin and, while being tripped, getting off a shot before crashing into Ruddock and knocking the puck in as the net came off its moorings. While the red light went on, referee Brad Sheppard signaled no goal before getting a second opinion from the replay booth. Sheppard asked if the puck had crossed the goal before the net came loose and, upon receiving an affirmative answer, reversed his decision.

Minnesota had closed the gap to 4-1 and attempted to get more by pulling Horak with three-and-a-half minutes to play. However, no sooner had Horak left the ice than Harvard regained control of the puck and advanced it to center ice. From there, Ruggiero fired a shot into the empty net. Horak was back in the net when Tracy Catlin scored Harvard’s final goal, with fewer than two minutes left.

The Gophers were once again looking at the third-place game, a place they didn’t want to be. But Curtin, playing her final games for Minnesota, said, “You don’t want to go out on two losses.”

Unfortunately for Minnesota, that’s exactly how their season ended two days later as they fell to Dartmouth in the third-place game, a prelude to the championship game in which Minnesota-Duluth beat Harvard in double overtime.