In a career milestone, the women’s hockey team’s interim head coach Doug Derraugh ’91 won his first game this past Saturday, as his squad topped Niagara, 6-2. The win came after a 3-1 loss to Niagara the previous night.
The win on Saturday night snapped a three-game losing streak for the Red, which struggled mightily in its first two contests of the season. However, things began to turn around in the second game at Niagara’s Dwyer Arena, which saw the Red get two-point nights from three of its players. Junior Halina Kristalyn scored twice and sophomore Caeleigh Beerworth had a goal and an assist. Freshman Emma Chipman had two assists – the first two points of her Cornell career. The win improved the Red to 1-3-0, and dropped the Purple Eagles to 2-5-1.
“There’s always pressure with each game you go into, but I think this game in particular was very important to us as a team as a whole, both the coaches and players combined,” Beerworth said. “After this win we definitely got over the hump and our confidence has increased.”
Cornell sophomore Sarah Johnston opened up the scoring at 7:46 of the first period, netting her first goal of the year with an assist from classmate Beth DiBella. The score remained 1-0 until almost five minutes into the second period, when Beerworth extended the lead to 2-0 on her second goal of the year. Beerworth leads the team in scoring with two goals and two assists.
Just 27 seconds after Beerworth’s goal, Niagara’s Meagan Bleiman cut the lead in half, beating Red senior goalie Flora Vineberg to make the score 2-1.
Cornell senior assistant captain Vicki Hodgkinson got the goal back with less than three minutes to play in the second period on a power-play goal, making the score 3-1. That was the closest the Purple Eagles would get, as the Red scored three goals in the third period, including the two from Kristalyn, to make the final score 6-2.
“We capitalized on our scoring chances and our special teams played really well,” Kristalyn said. “Just getting the win in itself was the most important, getting the monkey off our backs and getting the win for our coach.”
The loss on Friday night did not come without a few bright spots. Despite being outshot 11-6 in the first period, junior goalie Beth Baronick did not allow a goal in the first 20 minutes of play, and finished with 28 saves on the night.
“Both our goalies played extremely well this weekend, and we can always count on getting good play from either Beth or Flora,” Kristalyn said.
Niagara’s Katie Gray broke the scoreless tie at the 9:53 mark of the second period off a feed from Emily Castonguay. Melanie Mills was given the second assist on the play. Candance Boyles added an unassisted goal for the Purple Eagles with just 2:03 remaining in the period, giving Niagara a 2-0 lead going into the dressing room for the second intermission. Just 2:07 into the third, Charde Hoyle-Levy extended the Niagara lead to 3-0 when she scored an unassisted goal.
With Cornell playing catch-up, Baronick went to the bench in favor of an extra attacker. The strategy paid off, as senior captain Andrea Skinner got her first goal of the year on assists from Becky Fisher and Miranda Callaghan. The Red’s lone goal finished off the scoring, and handed the squad the 3-1 defeat.
Archived article by Jacob Lieberman
Sun Staff Writer