The Dartmouth women's hockey team opened postseason play Saturday with an virtually flawless 3-1 win over Niagara. After the Big Green captured the regular season conference crown a week ago, their fans have high expectations for them down the stretch, and Saturday, none left Thompson Arena disappointed.
Dartmouth skated hard from the first whistle and, simply put, outplayed the Purple Eagles throughout the contest. Forward Kristin King '02 started the game on the right foot for the Big Green with an early goal at 3:05, assisted by Carly Haggard '03.
Through the first ten minutes of the first period, Dartmouth completely dominated the game, keeping the puck in the Niagara zone and applying constant pressure on the Purple Eagle defense. The Big Green outshot Niagara 8-1 in that stretch, and only lost some of their momentum when Liz Macri '01 and captain Jennifer Wiehn '01 took penalties around the ten and twelve minute mark.
At 16:04, the Big Green increased their lead to 2-0 on a slapshot taken by Correne Bredin '02 from the right of the goal, just inside the blue line. The shot stayed low and snuck its way in between the near post and the left pad of the sprawling Purple Eagle goalie. Lauren Trottier '01 and Wiehn assisted on the play.
By the first intermission, Dartmouth had a commanding 2-0 lead, and was winning the shots-on-goal battle by a telling 19-4 margin.
In any event, the second period of play brought continued domination by the Big Green, as they won loose pucks and bombarded the Purple Eagles with shots. The period was a scoreless one, but the Big Green clearly owned it, refusing to allow Niagara back into the game. By the second intermission, Dartmouth was outshooting the Purple Eagles by a total of 35-8.
The third period brought some excitement to what seemed a lopsided contest. At 7:07, amidst heavy traffic in front of the Dartmouth goal, Niagara scored its first goal of the game on a shot that sailed over the glove of an outstretched Meaghan Cahill '01 on a rebound opportunity. The goal brought the Purple Eagles to within one, but it did not bring with it a shift in momentum -- the Big Green were as dominant in the third period as ever.
Their dominance paid off at 12:04, when Amy Catlin '03 scored a magnificent goal after carrying the puck across the crease from right to left and then shooting as she fell to the ice. Assisted by Haggard on the play, Catlin's goal gave Dartmouth more insurance than it would need as time ran out.
In other ECAC postseason play, second-seeded Harvard survived a scare from Providence, winning 4-3 on an overtime goal 5:03 into the extra period. St. Lawrence, who came into the ECAC quarterfinals seeded third, defeated sixth-seeded New Hampshire 1-0 on a first period goal scored by center Jessica Wison.
The other quarterfinal game featured fifth-seeded Northeastern at fourth-seeded Brown. The Bears carried the game 4-2.
Next weekend, the Big Green will host the remainder of the ECAC tournament at Thompson Arena, where they will play Brown game in the semi-finals. The team left standing at the conclusion of next weekend will be ECAC tournament champions; a distinction that the Dartmouth women's hockey team hopes will be a nice addition to the regular season crown.
