FORT COLLINS, Colo. -- A whack from a kid's hockey stick may have prevented the latest in a series of sexual assaults in Fort Collins.

Police said that a 30-year-old woman was at home in her apartment earlier this week when a man cut through the window screen of her ground-level apartment and was trying to climb in.

"She was alone in her apartment at the time," said Rita Davis, Fort Collins police spokeswoman. "She had gone to bed and heard a noise."

Davis said that the woman grabbed her child's hockey stick and hit the man in the face near his left eye, causing him to flee.

The suspect is described as a white male, 25 to 40 years old, about 6 feet tall with a husky or muscular build, a light complexion and short or thinning blond hair that is short in front and collar length in back (sketch, left).

The victim told police that his nose appeared broken near the bridge from a prior injury and he should have a fresh injury or bruise near his left eye from the hockey stick.

When police checked with other women in the same apartment complex, two residents who live in ground-level apartments told police that their screens had also been cut, although no entry was made into their apartments.

Since May, Fort Collins police have received three reports of sexual assaults similar to Monday's crime. In each instance, women reported that a man entered through an unlocked window after removing the screen, then blindfolded and sexually assaulted them.

All three had ground-level apartments, police said.