DURHAM, N.H.—History has a funny way of repeating itself. With only one game separating it from a national title, the Harvard women’s hockey team is now looking to make some history of its own.

The Crimson (26-6-3) advanced to its third straight NCAA finals with a thorough 4-1 defeat of ECAC foe St. Lawrence (27-8-5) in the Frozen Four Friday night.

Freshman Sarah Vaillancourt led the way for Harvard with a hat trick as the offense once again relied on the strength of its power play to blow past the Saints.

“Everybody was flying,” Crimson coach Katey Stone said. “We had great goaltending, great defense, played very fast in our own end and executed tremendously offensively. We were able to capitalize on some great opportunities on the power play and I was very pleased with the effort.”

This marked the second consecutive year that the Crimson—now undefeated in its last 21 games—bested St. Lawrence in the Frozen Four semifinals and the victory set up a return date with top-seeded Minnesota in the championship game. In 2004, the team edged past the Saints 2-1 in the semis before falling 6-2 to the Gophers in the finale.

Senior tri-captain Nicole Corriero got Harvard on the scoreboard just 6:29 into the game with her 59th goal of the season and 24th power-play strike. Set up deep in the St. Lawrence defensive zone with a man advantage, junior Julie Chu fed the puck to sophomore Caitlin Cahow at the right face-off circle, who then threaded a pass to Corriero at the left post for the easy one-timer. From that point on, Corriero, being hawkeyed as the collegiate single-season goals record-holder, yielded to Vaillancourt to shoulder the offensive burden.

“We may have very talented players but we don’t have a superstar mentality,” Stone said. “It doesn’t matter who does it, we have this hard-hat workman’s attitude and that’s what has gotten us to this point.”

Vaillancourt helped the Crimson double its lead less than four minutes later on a give-and-go connection with defender Lindsay Weaver at 4-on-4. Vaillancourt dished cross-ice to a charging Weaver on the right before redirecting the speeding return pass past St. Lawrence netminder Jessica Moffat at the left post.

Vaillancourt—arguably the team’s fastest skater—used the Olympic-sized sheet at the Whittemore Center to her advantage all game long, skating past defenders and spreading the opposing formations thin to create scoring chances for herself and her teammates.

The first two goals, both on well-executed touch passes close to the net, reflected the benefits of the wide rink for Harvard, with less body traffic and more room to operate.

We put the best five pairs of hands together on that unit,” Stone said. “And they found the openings and the first two goals were awesome, awesome.”

Facing a quick two-goal deficit, the Saints mounted a comeback charge culminating in sophomore forward Chelsea Grills’ put-back goal just 31 ticks into the second period.

“There was this stretch towards the end of the first period and the beginning of the second period where St. Lawrence was pouring a lot of pressure on us,” Corriero said. “We made a decision as a team to get together and play sound defense and really just attack them on the forecheck and when we're in our zone.”

The St. Lawrence goal, as just about every key moment in this match-up did, came on special teams.

In a tightly-called game all around, Harvard spent its fair share of time in the penalty box, incurring a total of 12 penalties, but successfully killing off all but one of the Saints’ 10 extra-skater opportunities.