Coming off a split at home against conference foes Yale and Brown this past weekend, the women’s hockey team will travel to Detroit, Mich., to face a strong Wayne State team at City Ice Arena. The Red will battle the Warriors tonight and tomorrow afternoon looking to improve upon its 1-2-1 all-time series record with the Warriors.
Cornell (1-2-1, 1-1-0 ECACHL) has played its first four games of the season at Lynah Rink, and these next two games on the road will test the team’s ability to respond to adversity early in this young season. These two games are the first of four consecutive games that the Red will play on the road in November. Freshman forward Rebecca Flewelling has set the pace for Cornell thus far in the young season, leading the team in scoring with two goals and two assists.
[img_assist|nid=19578|title=w hockey|desc=Junior forward Miranda Callaghan (14) handles the puck under pressure from a Yale defender during the Red’s 4-1 loss to the Bulldogs on Oct. 28 in Lynah Rink.|link=popup|align=left|width=100|height=64]
Wayne State (1-5) most recently lost a pair of one-goal games last weekend at Connecticut by scores of 4-3 and 3-2. The Warriors are powered offensively by sophomore forward Melissa Boal, who leads the team with eight goals, 10 points and five power-play goals. In Friday’s contest against Connecticut, Boal recorded her second-career hat trick. Sophomore forwards Lindsay DiPietro and Sam Poyton lead the team with four assists each.
In Cornell’s first two games of the season against Niagara, the women committed a total of 14 penalties. After only being penalized four times against Brown, Cornell head coach Doug Derraugh ’91 was relieved with the great improvement of reducing those miscues.
“I thought we did a very good job of staying out of the box for the most part,” Derraugh said. “Overall, I thought on the weekend we did a much better job of not taking penalties and thought our power play was more effective than in the last weekend.”
The Red have converted on 4-of-26 (.154) power-play opportunities and have killed off 18-of-20 (.800) of its opponents’ chances. On those four power play conversions, the Red have mixed it up on the scoring by having four different players find the back of the net.
Senior goaltender Beth Baronick has started every game for the Red and has a goals-against average of 2.68 with a .911 save percentage. On the other side of the ice, junior Valery Turcotte has started in five of the Warriors’ six games, and in those five games, she has posted a goals-against average of 3.22 with a .895 save percentage.