February 24, 2003

W. Icers Fall to 'Gate

Print More

The women’s hockey team (4-17-3, 2-10-2 ECAC) lost a close game to Colgate (12-17-1, 2-9-1) on Saturday after going 3-2-1 over its last six games. The Raiders were able to maintain a 1-0 lead on the Red for most of the game and finished with two empty netters to seal the 3-0 victory.

“It was frustrating,” remarked head coach Melody Davidson. “We hit about four goalposts.”

Neither team could get on the board in the first period, and the second period was similarly quiet. At 16:54 of the second, Colgate was finally able to capitalize when Carly McNaughton scored what would eventually be the game winner.

The second period was also filled with rough play from both squads, as Colgate took advantage of the Red’s exhaustion from having four games in seven nights.

“Colgate played a physical game — a lot of bumping,” explained Davidson. “[Also], we had an official who didn’t really make the calls we wanted.”

The Red played hard in the third period, registering nine more shots to raise the game total to 22. Nothing seemed to go Cornell’s way, and the Red was forced to pull senior goaltender Sanya Sandahl with just under two minutes remaining. Colgate capitalized on this opportunity twice to increase its lead to 3-0. This was the first time the Red had ever lost to the Raiders.

“It was definitely disappointing,” said Davidson, “[but junior Briana] Jentner didn’t play, [and] that hurt us, the four games in seven days definitely hurt us — we just did everything we could.”

Cornell plays Harvard on Friday in a much anticipated match-up. Harvard is the No. 1-ranked team in the country right now, and would host the Red in the first round of the ECAC playoffs if the season ended today.

When asked about how the team would rebound from the loss, Davidson replied, “Anytime you lose, you learn from it. We don’t practice until Tuesday [so we have time] to re-energize. We want to see how we can play against No. 1.”

Archived article by Michael Pandolfini