The women’s hockey team opened up its 2005-2006 campaign this past weekend with two losses at the hands of ECACHL foes Yale and Brown. Cornell dropped its season opener to Yale by a 5-2 score on Friday night and then fell by a slim 3-2 margin to Brown on Saturday afternoon.
Against Yale, despite a late third-period surge, the Red could not overcome its deficit. Yale got on the board early in the game with its first of two power-play goals in the opening period, as Jenna Spring scored at the 3:54 mark. Just under 10 minutes later, Deena Caplette extended Yale’s lead to 2-0.
In the second period, Yale hit Cornell with 15 shots on goal, compared to four for the Red, but managed to score just once, as Sheila Zingler found the back of the net.
With seven minutes gone by in the third, Kristin Savard extended Yale’s lead to four. Soon thereafter, needing offense in a hurry, Cornell pulled junior goalie Beth Baronick for an extra skater. The move paid off almost immediately, as senior assistant captain Vicki Hodgkinson scored as sophomores Beth DiBella and Molly McDonald assisted on the play.
One minute later, sophomore Miranda Callaghan cut Yale’s lead in half, as she took control of the puck and scored after a scramble in front of the net. Sophomore Caeleigh Beerworth was credited with an assist on the play.
However, without a goalie in the net, the Red was vulnerable, and with a little over a minute left in the game, Savard took advantage. She sent a shot from her own blue line into the empty net for her second goal of the game, icing the match.
Yale held a 32-25 advantage in shots on the night, won 40 of the 78 faceoffs and was 2-for-6 on power-play opportunities, while Cornell was 0-for-4. Baronick made 27 saves in the loss.
“One of our biggest problems was the number of penalties,” said interim head coach Doug Derraugh ’91. “We need to work on moving our feet and not use our stick to bring someone down.”
The Brown match on Saturday was a seesaw affair, eventually landing in the Bears’ favor.
Brown went on a power play after a tripping penalty on Cornell and soon took advantage when senior Keyton Zucker found the back of the net 7:32 into the game. Seven minutes later, Cornell knotted up the score on sophomore defender Lindsay Pegler’s first career goal. Pegler took a shot from Brown’s blue line and it bounced past the Brown goalie.
Early in the second period, Cornell took the lead on a power-play goal by Beerworth, who had received a pass from sophomore Brianne Schmidt and placed the puck in the top right hand corner of the net.
Soon thereafter, Brown replaced starting goalie Stacy Silverman in favor of Nicole Stock, who proceeded to shutout the Red for the remainder of the game in her first action of the season. Cornell did manage to fight off a 5-on-3 power play in the second period and was 1-for-6 on the penalty kill. However, Brown tied up the game with two and a half minutes to go in the period on a goal by senior Margaret Ramsay.
With 10 minutes to go in the third period, Brown freshman Frances Male scored her first career goal and the eventual game winner, as the Bears retained the lead for the remainder of play.
Cornell junior Flora Vineberg made 28 saves in net for her first start of the season.
“There were a lot of positives that came out of the games – the team played hard,” Derraugh said. “With a new coach and having only been on the ice for two weeks, its been a lot to digest, but the effort was definitely there.”
Archived article by Jon Hausner
Sun Staff Writer