Tuesday night’s game at Lynah was a tight one, going back and forth all game. Sometimes it seemed as though Cornell (2-4-2, 1-2-2 ECAC) would pull off the victory, other times Colgate (6-2-5, 0-1-4) would gain the momentum. While it looked as if the Red was going to let this one slip away, Cornell was able to fight back. A goal from senior Jess Brown with only 17.6 seconds left in regulation secured overtime, and led to a 3-3 tie with the Raiders.
Cornell put themselves on the board only 2:48 into the game to give the home team a 1-0 leader over the Raiders.
“I thought we got off to a really good start,” said head coach Doug Derraugh. “I thought it was our best start of the year; I thought we were pretty sharp early on.”
The play started from the back, as senior defender Cassandra Poudrier blocked a shot in the Cornell zone and sent the puck up to junior Hanna Bunton flying down the right wing. Once Bunton gathered the puck, she proceeded to make a nice move around a defender. A top shelf shot from Bunton got past Colgate goalie Ashlynne Rando.
“We came out strong in the first period, which is something we’ve been struggling with lately, and had contribution from different people,” Bunton said.
Bunton almost cashed in again early in the second period when a powerful shot from the junior hit off the left post and failed to find to the goal.
Just under seven minutes into the second period, the Raiders found their way into the game on a soft goal from Colgate defender Cat Quirion to tie the game at one a piece.
“It was kind of a weird play,” Derraugh said. “The shot came in and two players skated in front of the net and I think it bounced off one and then the other to go into the net … can’t really blame the goaltender on that.”
Senior defender Morgan Richardson committed a costly interference penalty in the latter half of the second period. Slightly over 30 seconds into the power play, Colgate’s Annika Zalewski netted the go-ahead goal off good puck movement from the Raiders.
A little less than halfway through the third period, it seemed that Hanna Bunton picked up her second goal of the night but the goal was waved off. And after review, the original call stood.
Moments later, the Red would bring the game back to an even 2-2 score when freshman Christian Highman scored. Junior Sydney Smith received the puck at the point from freshman Lenka Sedar. Smith found Highman in front of the goal where the freshman would wrist in the first of her career at Cornell.
The Red did a good job of controlling the neutral zone and forechecking to increase its amount of goal scoring opportunities.
“We have not only been focusing on the forechecking part of things but also what we do after we do get a turnover from it — the transition to creating some offense,” Derraugh said.
Colgate answered right back two minutes after Highman’s goal with an unassisted goal from Megan Sullivan. Sullivan’s shot went into the air and blooped into the goal past Cornell’s junior goalie Paula Voorheis.
Cornell was getting a lot of chances but could not seem to breakthrough for what would be the third and tying goal.
“I thought we had our chances to finish off some opportunities,” Derraugh said. “We took some penalties which slowed the pace down too.”
However, the Red would tie the game up once again with a mere 17.6 seconds left in regulation. Cornell pulled its goalie to create an advantage with an extra attacker. From the right side, junior Taylor Woods sent a pass to Bunton who slid the puck across the mouth of the goal, failing to cross the goal line.
The puck did, however, find the stick of Jess Brown. Brown brought the puck out the corner on the left side and, when she was almost parallel to the goal, fired a shot, which found its way past Rando for the equalizer goal.
“We didn’t give up even when we were down a goal in the last minute of the game so that resiliency was very exciting to see,” Bunton said.
“Everyone worked really hard for 60 minutes,” Poudrier, one of team’s captains, said. “We have to keep working on the details in making sure that we are consistent throughout the whole game.”
Cornell acquired a much needed point to become tied for 7th in the ECAC with Colgate and Clarkson.
The Red will travel to Erie, Pennsylvania this weekend for a pair of out-of-conference games against Mercyhurst.
“Overall, we took a step in the right direction, especially in preparing for the Mercyhurst games this weekend,” Poudrier said.