After winning a nail-biting game one against the Bobcats the day before, women’s hockey crushed Quinnipiac (25-11-1, 13-9-0 ECAC), 5-0, to advance to the semifinals and Championship Weekend.
Cornell (24-6-1, 17-5-0 ECAC) won all three periods of play, particularly dominating the second, en route to tying its largest margin of victory against a ranked opponent this season.
Similar to Friday night, the first period opened with both teams getting shots on net but being stymied by the goaltenders. About 1:40 into the game, junior forward Gabbie Rud and sophomore forward Avi Adam couldn’t convert on an odd-man rush opportunity.
A few seconds later, junior defender Rory Guilday was called for cross-checking, notching Cornell’s sixth penalty of the series. Cornell’s seventh-in-the-nation penalty kill continued its perfect weekend, allowing just one shot during the two-minute minor.
With the penalty killed, the Red looked to get on the board first. They did so when 9:29 into the period junior Kaitlin Jockims fired a shot into the blocker of Quinnipiac’s Logan Angers, ricocheting off right to the stick of sophomore forward Georgia Schiff who shoveled it past the goal line.
The goal paralleled the opening score in game one of the series 24 hours prior, which was also scored by Schiff off a rebounded shot from Jockims.
“[Scoring first] is really important. I know we’ve talked about [scoring first] as a team because it helps us get momentum,” Schiff said. “Especially in [the] playoffs, it’s really big and then in a longer series [scoring first] gives us some energy that’s much needed at times.”
With 8:52 to go in the first, Cornell got its first skater advantage of the series, snapping a two-game penalty-free streak for the Bobcats. The 10th-best power play in the nation got multiple high-percentage chances, including a junior forward Lily Delianedis shot that grazed the side of the net with 16 seconds left in the advantage.
“We created some good looks,” said head coach Doug Derraugh ’91 after the game. “I thought we moved the puck pretty well on the power play. We just didn’t finish very well.”
For the rest of the period, Cornell continued to edge Quinnipiac in scoring opportunities, until sophomore defender Alyssa Regalado was whistled for high sticking with 55 seconds left in the period.
10 seconds into the power play, a Quinnipiac one-timer from the point hit the post, but Cornell escaped the period with the goal advantage. At the end of the first, Angers had made 10 saves off of 23 Cornell shot attempts, while Cornell’s freshman goaltender Annelies Bergmann made six saves on nine Bobcat shots.
Back-and-forth play kicked off the second before senior forward Izzy Daniel flew by a defender and dropped a pass off to Delianedis, who rifled the puck into the back of the net to double Cornell’s lead 5:30 into the period.
Just like the first goal of the afternoon, the same combination of players had scored the day before. It was Delianedis’ 16th goal of the season and Daniel’s team-leading 35th assist, cushioning her lead in assists per game in the ECAC.
Cornell continued to hound Angers, with Rud wringing the post from the slot just 56 seconds after the Delianedis goal. Eventually, the pressure led to Quinnipiac’s Maddy Samoskevich tripping junior defender Ashley Messier with 12:07 to go in the period, giving Cornell its second power play of the day.
There were multiple good chances for the Red on the power play, including a wrist shot from a falling Delianides that forced a glove save from Angers, but Cornell was unable to score its third goal.
A chaotic third goal of the afternoon would instead come later in the period. With 6:20 seconds to go in the second, a forechecking Schiff poked the puck away from a Quinnipiac defender behind the goal towards Jockims, who then found sophomore forward Mckenna Van Gelder in front of the left post.
Van Gelder fired a shot that elicited an airborne rebound, which was ultimately deflected into the goal by her falling body. It was the third goal of the weekend created by the Van Gelder, Jockims and Schiff second line.
“We talked about [how] if we’re gonna have any success at this time of year, we were gonna need all three lines to be contributing,” Derraugh said. “It was a perfect example there tonight where all three lines contributed offensively, and that’s what created a big win for us.”
Cornell continued to hammer the Bobcats, who seemed to have little answer to the Red’s attack. Despite some good chances on a late Cornell power play, the second period ended with two Cornell goals and a 14-1 shot differential favoring the Red.
“I thought we were a little more consistent today,” Derraugh said, noting his team’s improvement from the first game of the series. “I thought we were a little bit better in our structure and moved the puck better.”
With the score 3-0, Cornell entered the third period looking to finish off the Bobcats and book a ticket to Championship Weekend. Just 1:56 into the period Adam caught a pass from junior forward Claudia Yu during a two-on-one and snuck it by a diving Angers for Cornell’s fourth goal of the game.
As the game wound down, both teams then traded penalties and Guilday hit the post 9:55 into the third period. When Quinnipiac pulled their goalie with 4:32 to go, Schiff deposited an empty netter to wrap up the 5-0 win. The 1,230-strong crowd erupted for one last time as the final horn sounded as chants of “We want Colgate” echoed throughout Lynah.
“It’s a great feeling,” Schiff said when asked about the series sweep. “We have a great group of girls right now on the team and it makes it really fun to win together.”
Cornell will take on No. 5 Colgate in Hamilton, New York next Friday in the ECAC tournament semifinals. The game will be streamed live on ESPN+.