After its most difficult weekend of the season — a home-and-home split with rival Colgate — No. 4 women’s hockey will take on two ECAC teams at the bottom of the conference standings: Union and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Cornell will make its annual trip to the Capital Region looking to use some of the lessons it learned from an up-and-down weekend against the Raiders.
“As much as you hate to lose, I thought it was good for us,” said head coach Doug Derraugh ’91 after his team’s 4-3 overtime win last Saturday. “It was a good opportunity for some teaching, it’s a cliche, but coaches always say ‘you always learn more from losses’ and I think we learned a few things about ourselves…that we need to correct going forward.”
Final Takeaways From Rivalry Weekend
On Friday afternoon at Colgate, Cornell (8-1-0, 5-1-0 ECAC) suffered its first defeat of the season. Not only did the Red lose, but Cornell was completely dominated by a Raider squad who had struggled to open the season.
“I think they weren’t ready for the physicality of that game, the speed of that game, and by the time they figured it out, it was too late,” Derraugh said. “I think they learned you cannot go into a game and not be ready, or you are going to lose.”
On Saturday, the Red responded with a 4-3 overtime win. In a game with a whopping 16 penalties taken (seven by Cornell and nine by Colgate), Cornell kept its composure and responded both to its poor performance the previous day and a two-goal deficit in the middle period.
“We responded well on Saturday, we’ll see how we respond this weekend. If you respond in the right way and you learn from it and you learn from it and grow from it and continue to push towards a positive place, then yes,” Derraugh said when asked if the early-season adversity would help his team going forward. “If it turns into finger pointing and those kinds of things, then it can go the other direction.”
‘Prime Time Prefo’
The overtime game-winner on Saturday was scored by junior forward Karel Prefontaine. The Quebec native has earned the moniker “Prime-time Prefo” from her teammates thanks to a series of clutch goals.
In Prefontaine’s freshman season, the forward used a fortuitous bounce off the Lynah Rink boards to pot an overtime gamewinner in the ECAC quarterfinals over Quinnipiac. In last season’s conference quarterfinals, Prefontaine scored the first of a pair of goals in the final 70 seconds to give Cornell an improbable 3-2 comeback win that The Sun dubbed “difficult to describe.”
“I think I kind of thrive in those moments. I’m someone who plays better when there is a lot of pressure, and there are tough games and tight games,” Prefontaine said. “I don’t think it’s anything special, I just think I thrive in those moments”
Union’s New Digs
On Friday night, Cornell will get a chance to play in the newest rink in ECAC Hockey: M&T Bank Center in Schenectady, New York. The new $50 million arena hosts both the Garnet Chargers men's and women’s hockey teams, replacing Messa Rink.
“It’s great for the league, great for Union,” Derraugh said. “I’ve seen it a little bit online, but I’m excited to see it in person.”
Last season, the Garnet Charges (5-7-2, 1-5-0 ECAC) served as Cornell’s kryptonite, downing the Red for the first time in program history at Lynah Rink and forcing the heroic ECAC playoff comeback. Derraugh attributed Cornell’s struggles against an otherwise-average team (Union finished tied for ninth in the ECAC Hockey standings) to a combination of the Garnet Chargers playstyle and some uncharacteristic play from the Red.
“I’d say it’s a combination of both, they made it difficult for us to generate offense and made it difficult for us to create opportunities,” Derraugh said. “They [also] capitalized on the opportunities that they had.”
Scouting RPI and Syracuse
On Saturday, the Red will travel to Troy, New York to take on the Engineers (4-11-0, 1-5-0 ECAC). RPI has struggled after losing much of its scoring from a season ago, entering the weekend with an offense and power play both ranked in the bottom 15 nationally. So far, the squads only ECAC win came in overtime against Union, although the Engineers managed to take a point from a solid Princeton team.
Three days after the matchup with RPI, Cornell will travel to Syracuse to kick off a stretch of three nonconference games in five days. Cornell blanked the Orange 5-0 on Oct. 28 at Lynah Rink, and have often used games at the Tennity Ice Pavilion as an opportunity to feature goaltenders who normally do not receive much playing time.
However, Derraugh declined to say if either sophomore Jeanne Lortie (who made her first collegiate start against Syracuse last season) or freshman Liv Ferebee would see the ice on Tuesday. Cornell is 9-0 all-time against the Orange in Syracuse.
Cornell will take on Union on Friday night in Schenectady at 6 p.m., before taking on RPI in Troy the following day at 3 p.m. Both 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.
