After dropping an ECAC tournament semifinal matchup to No. 3 Colgate, No. 6 women’s hockey will head back to Class of 1967 Arena in Hamilton, NY, looking for revenge in the NCAA tournament. To get to the Raiders (31-6-1, 18-4-0 ECAC), the Red (24-7-1, 17-5-0 ECAC) will have to go through the Stonehill Skyhawks (21-15-2, 17-9-2 NEWHA), who won the New England Women’s Hockey Alliance championship to earn an automatic bid to the tournament.
The Skyhawks qualified for the tournament in their program’s second year of existence and is one of two programs making its debut in the 11-team tournament. The Skyhawks, who knocked off Franklin Pierce University, 3-2, in overtime to claim the NEWHA crown, currently hold an eight-game winning streak.
“I don’t know a whole lot about them. Obviously, we don’t really see them all year long not being in our league,” said head coach Doug Derraugh ’91. “[It] looks like they’ve got a solid team from top to bottom and play a real strong team game.”
Although Stonehill has never played Cornell, its first-year head coach Lee-J Mirasolo is no stranger to the ECAC. Mirasolo served as an assistant coach for 12 years in the conference (four at Princeton followed by eight at Harvard).
The Skyhawks have been powered by forward Alexis Petford who leads the team in goals with 19, assists with 15 and points with 34. However, Petford has not scored in her last six games. Between the pipes for Stonehill will be Eve Stone, a sophomore who holds an impressive .922 save percentage and is 15-10-2 on the season. Stone has played excellently of late, having not given up more than three goals in a game since a Jan. 13 loss at Assumption University.
The youth of the Stonehill program is evident throughout the Skyhawks roster, with a lack of depth and just four upperclassmen on the team. In fact, in early November, both of Stonehill’s goaltenders were hurt, and defenseman Hannah Squires had to step in as an emergency netminder.
“It’s awesome for them, they’re growing the sport,” said freshman goaltender Annelies Bergmann. “Only the second year in program history and they’re already making the tournament. … I am excited to play them.”
The inexperience of Stonehill’s roster has not stopped the team from creating an impressive resume. The Skyhawks are currently 12th in the nation in total goals scored with 100, averaging 2.63 per game –– 17th in the nation. The Skyhawks also boast the eighth best penalty kill in the NCAA, which is tested frequently by a Stonehill team that averages the seventh-most penalty minutes per game nationally.
Cornell enters its first NCAA tournament since 2019-20, when the team was the one seed before the tournament was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, the Red secured one of the tournament’s six at-large bids despite being knocked out in the ECAC tournament semifinals.
“We are the underdogs, and I think we have that mentality that we want to upset these teams and [we] know that we can. … We’re excited,” Bergmann said.
Cornell’s high-octane offense is led by senior forward Izzy Daniel, who has accounted for over 18 percent of the Red’s 305 points this season. Daniel, who ranks second nationally in assists per game and third in total points, has been showered with awards since the regular season concluded. Daniel secured the Ivy League and ECAC Player of the Year awards and was named a Patty Kazmaier Award Top-Three Finalist. The award is given annually to the top NCAA D1 women’s ice hockey player.
Along with sophomore defenseman Grace Dwyer, junior defenseman Rory Guilday and Bergmann, Daniel was invited to the 2024 United States Women’s National Team evaluation camp in Lake Placid, NY, which will help set the US roster for the International Ice Hockey Federation Women’s World Championship in Utica, NY, in early April.
Bergmann, the Ivy League Rookie of the Year, was named second team All-ECAC and unanimously chosen to the ECAC All-Rookie team. She enters the tournament with a .927 save percentage and four shutouts, and she ranks eighth in the nation in goaltender minutes.
The stellar play of Bergmann and Daniel is a major reason why Cornell did not lose a game to a team outside of the nation’s top 15 and had a seven game win streak before last week’s loss to the Raiders.
“I think we really relied on each other and just stuck to our strengths,” Bergmann said when asked about the win streak. “We were really confident in one another and confident in ourselves.”
The Red’s impressive record is no fluke. Cornell boasts the nation’s fourth-best offense, ninth-best defense, tenth-best penalty kill and second-best shorthanded goal tally. However, the Red has had trouble with Colgate this season, with three of the team’s seven total losses coming against the Raiders. Although the score didn’t reflect it, the closest game was the most recent, in which the Red tied the score just over six minutes into the third before giving up four goals in the final 10 minutes.
“I think we learned a lot from that [Colgate] game and going into Saturday, that’s when the real win matters. That’s when it’s life or death. So I think we’re ready,” Bergmann said.
Thursday’s NCAA tournament matchup against Stonehill takes place at 7 p.m., and the winner will earn a spot in the regional final against Colgate on Saturday, at 3 p.m. Both games will be streamed live on ESPN+.