Princeton University Athletics
Women's Hockey Hosts League Games Against Cornell and Colgate
December 01, 2005 | Women's Ice Hockey
Dec. 1, 2005
Princeton, N.J. - The sixth-ranked Princeton women's hockey continues its season-long 10-game homestand on this weekend with league games against Cornell and Colgate. The games are the first two of five that Princeton will play in the next eight days. Friday's game is at 7 p.m., and Saturday's is at 4 p.m.
Gametracker live stats will be available for both games. Links can be found on the Princeton women's hockey schedule page. Saturday afternoon's game is part of the USCHO.com Game of the Week broadcast package and a link to the audio broadcast can be found on the schedule page. An interview with senior defenseman Chrissie Norwich will air during one of the intermissions and Princeton women's hockey alum Mollie Marcoux '91 will serve as a guest analyst during the game.
The Tigers (5-3-2, 2-1-1 ECACHL) enter the weekend series ranked sixth in one poll and seventh in the other. Princeton's rank remained the same in the American Hockey Magazine Poll and dropped a spot in the USCHO poll. Princeton is one point ahead of Mercyhurst in first poll and one point behind Mercyhurst in the second after the two teams played a pair of tight one-goal games at Baker Rink last weekend. A last second goal gave Mercyhurst the win on Friday, but an overtime goal gave Saturday's win to the Tigers.
Princeton's series with Mercyhurst completed a run of eight-straight games against nationally ranked opponents. Princeton was 4-3-1 in those games, including wins over Dartmouth, Ohio State, Clarkson and Mercyhurst, and a tie with top-ranked St. Lawrence. While Princeton's next five games do not feature games against ranked opponents, the schedule will certainly not be easy as the Tigers face Colgate, the second-place team in the ECACHL standings, Quinnipiac, the Tigers' new travel partner that has the same amount of points as Princeton, and Wayne State, which has wins over ECAC foes Cornell and Colgate this year. Every game Princeton has played this year has been tight as eight of the 10 have been decided by a goal or ended in a tie. Only Princeton's 3-1 win at Dartmouth and 4-1 win at Ohio State had wider margins. Last weekend was no different as Princeton was a second away from reaching overtime twice.
Good team defense, excellent goaltending and timely goal scoring have been the early season recipe of success for the Tigers. Princeton's most timely goal last weekend came off the stick of freshman Annie Greenwood. She scored on the rebound of a shot by junior Kim Pearce to win Saturday's game in overtime for the Tigers. She also scored in Friday night's game and was named the ECAC Hockey League's Rookie of the Week for her performance over the weekend.
Several other Tigers recorded multiple points on the weekend. Pearce had four assists, junior Laura Watt had three assists, junior Dina McCumber had a goal and two assists and sophomore Marykate Oakley had a goal and an assist.
Princeton is 35-19-2 all-time against Cornell and is 19-7-2 in the series at Baker Rink. Princeton has won 10-straight games in the series dating back to the 1999-00 season. Last season the Tigers defeated Cornell 2-0 in Princeton on goals from Liz Keady, who is taking the year off to play with the U.S. National Team, and Pearce. Senior goaltender Roxanne Gaudiel made 15 saves in the shutout. When the teams met in Ithaca, Princeton came back to win 6-5 in overtime. Senior Sarah Butsch scored three goals in a span of 2:37 to tie the game at 5-5 and then win the game for Princeton in overtime.
Cornell is 2-6 overall and 0-4 in the league. The Big Red dropped league games against Yale and Brown to open the season, and then split non-league series' with Niagara and Wayne State. Last weekend its travel partner Colgate swept Cornell in a home-and-home series.
Princeton is 9-0-2 all-time against Colgate and is 4-0-1 in the series at Baker Rink. While the Tigers are unbeaten in the series, the teams have played to two consecutive ties. At Baker Rink, they played to the first scoreless tie in Princeton women's hockey history as Gaudiel made 23 saves for Princeton and Brook Wheeler made 35 for Colgate. In Hamilton, the score was 2-2 as sophomore Brittany Salmon scored the equalizer with six minutes left in regulation.
Colgate is 7-4-2 overall and 4-0 in the league. After starting the year 0-2-2, Colgate is 7-2 in its last nine and has won six of eight. Colgate enters the weekend after sweeping Cornell last weekend. The Raiders also have recent wins over Niagara, Robert Morris, Yale and Brown.
Princeton continues its homestand on Tuesday night when Quinnipiac visits Baker Rink at 7 p.m.