Women’s Hockey Has an Up and Down Break

Womens Hockey Has an Up and Down Break

After a disappointing 0-5-1 start to its season, Colgate notched its first two wins of the year at home against Brown and Yale. Looking to build upon those exciting home victories, the Raiders continued their ECAC conference play with away games against Quinnipiac and Princeton, followed by home games against non-conference Wayne State.

The Raiders looked to start their road conference schedule strong with a game in Hamden, Connecticut against the Quinnipiac Bobcats, who struck early when sophomore forward Brianna Burton dropped the puck to junior defender Trudy Reyns. She than slipped the puck past junior goalie Elayna Hamashuk just under two minutes into the game to give the Bobcats an early lead. The Raiders answered back nine minutes later on a power play when junior co-captain Elin Brown took a pass from classmate Kiira Dosdall and jammed it past Quinnipiac first-year goalie Tia Wishart. Junior forward Sam Hunt scored the only even strength goal of the game four minutes into the second period, with assistance coming from Brown and first-year forward Hannah Milan. The Raiders extended their lead to 3-1 when sophomore forward Katie Stewart scored her first goal of the year on a power play. The Bobcats tried to mount a comeback, getting an unassisted goal from Antoinette Maldonado, but 3-2 was the closest they would get. The Raiders extended their lead in the second period with a power play goal from sophomore forward Bety Rotenberg, her first of the year, and a third period power play goal by Hunt, her fourth. The 5-2 victory was the third-in-a-row for the Raiders and the first of the year from Hamashuk, who made 25 of 27 saves in the win.

The next game featured the suddenly hot Raiders and the always dangerous Princeton Tigers. Despite outshooting the Raiders 14-6 in the first period, the Tigers were only able to get a 1-0 lead when Annie Greenwood pushed Katherine Dineen’s rebound past Raiders first-year goalie Lisa Plenderleith. Midway through the second period, the Tigers’ Julie Flynn scored a goal to give Princeton a 2-0 lead. The third period was full of back-and-forth action. However, the Tigers struck again, this time by a shorthanded breakaway goal by Brittany Salmon, to make the lead, 3-0 with ten minutes remaining. The Raiders were unable to find the back of net, leading to their first ECAC loss of the year and their sixth overall.

After splitting the games on their in-conference road trip, the Raiders returned to Starr Rink for a two-game series against the Wayne State Warriors. In the first game, the Raiders struck first getting a goal at 18:02 of the first period when Brown knocked a rebound off first-year forward Hannah Milan’s shot pastthe Warrior goalie Tiffany Thompson. The Raiders doubled their lead in the second period when sophomore forward Beth Rotenberg took a pass from classmate Marissa Dombovy and beat Thompson. That goal seemed to fire up Thompson, who didn’t allow another goal despite all of Colgate’s efforts. First-year goalie Lisa Plenderleith could not keep pace with her counterpart, as the Warriors scored two goals in both the second and third periods. The 4-2 loss dropped the Raiders to 3-7-1.

The second game of the series was an exciting one featuring junior forward Sam Hunt, who scored her third career hat trick to match the Warriors’ entire team production. After a scoreless first period, Hunt put one past senior goalie Tiffany Thompson a minute into the second period off an assist from Brown. Five minutes later, she doubled the lead after taking a Katie Stewart pass, dodging two defenders and using a nifty between-the-legs move to fool Thompson again. Not wanting to be left out of the offensive surge, junior defender Clancy Todd took a pass from first-year forward Jacquie Colborne and put it in the net to expand the lead to 3-0. Hunt finished off her hat trick at the 15:10 mark of the second period on a rebound shot that ended Thompson’s night. Continuing the goal-scoring trend, sophomore forward Beth Rotenberg found senior co-captain Kate Wolgemuth in front of the net and shot through traffic. Senior forward Valery Turcotte stopped her shot, but senior forward Kara Leene scored off the rebound a minute-and-a-half into the third period.Senior forward Ashley King finally got theWarriors on the board with a power play goal just over a minute later. Not wanting to allow the Warriors back into the game, Colgate took the offensiveas first-year forward Jacquie Colborne took a pass from Todd and put it past Turcotte to make the score 6-1. The Warriors, however, would not give up. Thirty seconds later, Adrianna Pfeffer scored her first goal of the year to make it 6-2. Then a minute later, her teammate Sam Poyton scored to make the game 6-3, but that was the last goal the Warriors would notch. First-year forward Hannah Milan got into the act for the Raiders when she sent the puck up ice to sophomore Evan Minnick, who scored a shorthanded goal. The 7-3 win was the Raiders fourth of the year.

The Raiders return to league play next weekend when they host Princeton on Friday at 7 p.m. and Quinnipiac on Saturday at 3 p.m.