W. Hockey Loses, Then Ties in Ivy Openers

The women’s hockey team lost and tied its two ECACHL games this weekend at Lynah Rink. The Red (3-4-1, 0-1-1 ECACHL) fell 5-2 to Yale on Friday night, and then tied Brown 2-2 on Saturday.
In its loss to the Bulldogs (3-0-1, 3-0-1), the Red built a 2-0 lead heading into the third period. At the 4:09 mark of the second period, freshman Karlee Overguard took a pass from senior Brianne Schmidt to put away her team-leading fourth goal of the year. With 4 minutes to go in the second, senior Caeleigh Beerworth added to the Red’s lead with a 5-on-3 goal, assisted by Overguard and Laura Danforth.
The third period was a different story for the Red, as it let quickly let its lead slip away. The Bulldogs got on the board 3:40 into the third, as Bray Ketchum scored a power play goal. Just over three minutes later, Ketchum assisted on a game-tying goal by Sarah Tittman, knotting it at 2-2.
The teams battled for the next eight minutes, when Yale finally took the game away from the Red. Crysti Howser scored for the Bulldogs at the 14:20 mark to give them a 3-2 lead, followed by a Denise Soesilo goal just 14 seconds later. Yale capped off its scoring to secure the 5-2 win with an empty net goal. Sophomore goalkeeper Jenny Niesluchowski had a game-high 18 saves on the night.
Head coach Doug Derraugh ’91 attributed the team’s poor play in the third period to a combination of Yale coming out more aggressively than the Red, as well as the Red playing more passively than it did in the prior two periods. He added that the team made a few mental mistakes defensively that it ultimately paid for in the loss. On the other hand, he looks back at this game as a learning experience for a squad dominated by underclassmen.
“It’s something that we have to learn from,” Derraugh said. “It’s a good learning tool for a young team like ours. If you want to get respect in this league, it’s all about how you respond the second day. Win, lose or tie, it’s about how you come back and play the next day.”
On Saturday afternoon, the Red used a third period rally of its own to earn a tie versus Brown (1-4-1, 1-3-1 ECACHL). Despite dominating most of the game and outshooting the Bears 47-32 (including a 10-4 edge in overtime), the Red found itself down, 2-1, 2 minutes into the second period.
The squad continued dictating play throughout the third period, but was unable to score on any of its 12 shots. Derraugh had pulled freshman goalkeeper Kayla Strong as the game was winding down, but put her back in net when Brown’s Samantha Stortini was penalized for hitting after the whistle.
The Red used the 5-on-4 advantage to pull even with just two seconds to go on a miraculous goal by sophomore Liz Zorn, assisted by Danforth and Overguard. The squad had several scoring opportunities in the overtime period, but Brown goalkeeper Nicole Stock did not succumb to the Red’s onslaught. Though the team was not satisfied with earning just one point from a game that it could have easily won, there were still some positives that Derraugh took away from the game.
“In one way, it’s frustrating, because I think we outplayed them; we outshot them and had a number of great scoring opportunities,” Derraugh said. “In another way, it was encouraging, because we came out hard — especially given what happened in the game the day before — and really it took it to [Brown]. … It was nice to get that feeling where turned the tables on the other team, and scored a goal late in the game to tie it up.”
Missing from the squad this weekend was freshman forward Rebecca Johnston, who was competing with the Canadian National Women’s Hockey Team in the Four Nations Cup. Team Canada beat Team USA 2-0 to secure its fourth-straight tournament victory, held this year in Leksand, Sweden.