On Friday afternoon at Lynah Rink, No. 3 women’s hockey will face off with No. 9 Clarkson in the first ECAC tournament semifinal. With a win, the Red would advance to the championship game the next day with a chance to take home its first ECAC title since 2014.
Since its last title win, Cornell (22-4-5, 16-2-4 ECAC) has qualified for the ECAC playoffs in all 10 seasons, made it to the semifinals six times, and made it to the finals in four. But for the Red, the past nine seasons have all ended the same way: heartbreak.
In the 2015 ECAC championship decider, Cornell scored a goal early in the third period to take a 2-1 lead over Harvard before surrendering six goals in the final 17 minutes en route to a 7-3 drubbing.
In 2017, the Red could not muster a goal despite over nine minutes of power play time, and Clarkson took home the ECAC crown by a 1-0 score.
It was Clarkson again downing the Red in the title game in 2019, defeating top-seeded Cornell 4-1 at Lynah Rink.
A year later, entering the championship game as the No. 1 team in the country and again playing in front of a home crowd, Cornell scored twice in the game’s opening three minutes before giving up two unanswered goals in regulation and a third in overtime to lose in dramatic fashion to Princeton.
For all of those losses, and the four ECAC championships before 2014 that preceded the heartbreak, there has been a constant. Newly minted ECAC Head Coach of the Year Doug Derraugh ’91 has seen it all during his 19 years behind the bench for Cornell, and knows what it takes to win on ECAC championship weekend.
“I think sometimes at this time of year, because there is heightened excitement, you sometimes get out of your game plan and try to do too much,” Derraugh said when asked what his experiences have taught him. "You want to play with passion, you want to play with energy, you want to play with excitement. But you also want to play smart, and you want to play with structure, and not lose your emotions.”
Unfortunately for Cornell, across the bench from the Red Friday afternoon will stand another veteran coach. Like Derraugh, Matt Desrosiers — a three-time ECAC coach of the year in his 17th season at the helm of the Golden Knights — has also been here before. In fact, his squad has beaten Derraugh’s twice in an ECAC final.
This season, the matchups between the two squads have been all Cornell. The Red slayed the Golden Knights, 3-0, in Potsdam, New York on Jan. 3, in what Derraugh then-described as the teams “most complete game” of the season. 29 days later, Cornell defeated Clarkson 2-1 in a much closer battle.
“We got to focus on just sticking to our game plan [and] playing the way we need to,” Desrosiers said when asked about the keys to taking down Cornell on Friday. “Not letting Cornell feed off the crowd too much and buzz around.”
It hasn’t been easy for either team to make it to this point in the season. While Cornell lost just twice in conference play on its way to claiming the program’s seventh ECAC regular season title, the Red struggled at times against Union in the ECAC quarterfinals. While Cornell dominated play — outshooting the Garnet Chargers 81-33over the course of the series sweep — the Red needed last-minute heroics to take game two. The inability to convert outshooting opponents into outsourcing them is a puzzle that the Red will need to solve this weekend.
“It's interesting because you have to be patient, but you also have to get pucks in, you can’t get frustrated. You have to find ways to penetrate to the inside on them and not just be satisfied with playing on the outside,” Derraugh said. “At the same time, you don’t want to play high risk either and allow them to create counter-chances. So that is the balance you always have to work with when you’re playing against teams that have good structure like Clarkson.”
Derraugh’s fear of Golden Knight counter chances is well founded. Clarkson will bring a trio of All-ECAC first teamers to Ithaca, composed of defenders Nicole Gosling and Hailey Winn (the only unanimous first team selection and a top-10 Patty Kazmaier award finalist) and forward Anne Cherkowski. This fearsome trio has led Clarkson to both the nation’s seventh-best offense and defense.
Cornell’s defense — headlined by sophomore ECAC Goaltender of the Year Annelies Bergmann — should be ready for the challenge. The Red entered the weekend allowing just 1.5 goals per game, third-best in the nation. Cornell has not given up more than 2 goals over a 10-0-2 stretch dating back to Jan. 14, and has allowed the second fewest shot attempts this season.
While Cornell has struggled at times against Clarkson, it should be buoyed by a boisterous Lynah Rink, which boasts the fourth highest attendance average in the nation according to USCHO. More than 1,500 members of the Lynah Faithful were present for both of the Red’s wins over Union in the quarterfinals, and even higher attendance is expected for Saturday's final should Cornell qualify.
“I expect the energy to be high in Lynah, it’s usually rocking there,” Desrosiers said. “I fully expect it to be a really good hard fought game.”
Cornell will take on Clarkson in the first of two winner-take-all semifinals at Lynah Rink Friday at 3 p.m. The second semifinal, between No. 5 Colgate and No. 7 St. Lawrence, will commence at 6 p.m at Lynah Rink. The winners of the semifinals will face off in the ECAC Hockey Championship Game Saturday at 3:30 p.m. All games will be streamed live on ESPN+.
Eli Fastiff is a senior editor on the 143rd editorial board and a member of the class of 2026 in the College of Arts and Sciences. You can follow him on X @Eli_Fastiff and reach him at efastiff@cornellsun.com.
