The women’s hockey team lost two tough games this weekend to Connecticut (6-7-2) and Boston College (6-4-1). The Red (0-7-1, 0-5-1 ECAC) fell 2-1 to Connecticut on Saturday and 4-1 to B.C. on Sunday in its first non-conference games of the season.
Connecticut opened the scoring on Saturday when Angie Wallace fired a shot to the opposite post past senior Liz Connelly with a minute and a half remaining in the first period. Jill VanDam and Stefanie Snow assisted on the score. The Huskies would add another goal 7:37 into the second period. With junior Anita Khar in the penalty box for obstruction, Laura Stosky put one past Connelly from the side of the net.
The Red would answer back with a goal of its own on the power play. Khar put one past Shannon Murphy at 14:42, with assists going to sophomore Pearle Nerenberg and junior Briana Jentner. Khar’s goal marked the team’s first power play goal this season.
The icers were unable to close the gap in the third period, however, and the Huskies came away with its sixth win of the season. Connelly stopped 36 shots for the Red, while Murphy turned aside 22.
“I thought we battled and played hard. Again, we’re struggling to find the net, and until we do, our confidence is going to go up and down, which we pay a price on,” commented head coach Melody Davidson.
On Sunday, Boston College notched two goals late in the first period to grab a lead it would never relinquish. Heide Seidewand tallied her fifth goal of the season at 16:31, and Lindsey Bazzone notched her sixth of the season less than two minutes later.
The icers came out very strong after the first intermission, dominating the second period. With the Red on the power play, Khar found freshman Jen Munhofen, who fired a shot over Alison Quandt’s shoulder for her first collegiate goal at 14:27. Cornell outshot the Eagles eight to three in the period.
Boston College would put the game away in the third, as Jaclyn Krysak connected on a pass from Kristin Blundo at 7:30 to put the Eagles up by two. Gen Richardson added another score at 13:24 off a feed from Seidewand.
“The fourth goal was a real bad bounce. I’ve never seen a goal like it before, there was some bad luck there,” remarked Davidson.
Connelly made 22 saves on the afternoon, with Quandt finishing with 19.
Despite the lack of offense on the weekend, Davidson was very pleased with the effort put forth by the team.
“When the other team scores, it’s hard to get up sometimes, only scoring one goal a game. I liked a lot of the things I saw this weekend,” she said. “We scored two power play goals — those were our first power play goals this year. We did some good things again, and we’ll keep plugging away.”
Connelly played in back-to-back games for the first time this season and was solid between the pipes.
“Liz played outstanding. Saturday, she gave us a chance to win the game, no question there. Sunday, she let a couple goals in the short side, which we’ve been working on. We’ve still got to work on covering the post,” said Davidson. “Both games, she gave us a chance to win the hockey game, and we have to score more than one goal a game to win.”
The Red returns home to Lynah on Sunday for a 2 p.m. contest against Niagara, as it continues the bulk of its non-conference schedule. The icers will head up to Montreal at the beginning of January for the Concordia Tournament and will play a two-game set at Findlay the following week.
Archived article by Jonathan Auerbach