When asked whether Dartmouth's (5-3-0, 5-1-0 ECACHL) relative woes on offense on Saturday was due to better competition in Colgate or self-inflicted mistakes, assistant captain Nicole Ruta '08 said, "I think it was a bit of a combination of both. We came out flying for the Cornell game looking for a big victory and we were capitalizing on all the opportunities we had. However, in the Colgate game we weren't generating as many scoring chances as we would've liked."
With the score tied at 1-1 late in the third period, the Raiders (3-7-1, 3-1-0 ECACHL) earned a face-off in the Big Green's defensive zone after Carli Clemis '09 bobbled a shot and was forced to make a save on the subsequent rebound.
Off the face-off, the puck was deflected into the left corner where Colgate's Carl McNaughton picked up the puck and put a centering pass right to the top of the crease. Elin Brown found herself with space in front and put a shot in the five-hole for the game-winning tally with 8:32 remaining.
Dartmouth tried to mount a comeback, but the team could not make a dent in the scoreboard. Maggie Kennedy '09 appeared to score when the puck slipped behind Colgate goalie Elayna Hamashuck and sat on the goal line. The red light went off behind the cage, but the referee waved off any potential goal.
Ruta did not have any major complaints about the incident. "I was at a bad angle and couldn't see the puck from where I was, but apparently the puck was just sitting on the line so the referee did make the right call," she said.
With 2:17 remaining, the Big Green had a golden opportunity to force overtime when Colgate captain Kate Wulgemuth made a trip to the penalty box on a hooking infraction. However, Dartmouth 's man-up could not get a shot past Hamashuck, and the Raiders celebrated their momentous victory as the clock ran down to all zeros.
Although the Big Green outshot Colgate 33-17, and Dartmouth was able to keep Colgate's offensive chances limited, the squad could not seem to find a way to grab the lead after Marley McMillan '09's equalizer in the first period.
Part of the problem stemmed from a lack of production on the power play, where the Big Green failed to convert on six extra-man situations. Colgate went 1-for-5 on its power play chances.
"We were having a bit of trouble with power play on Saturday, and we were finding it hard to break the puck out of our zone and successfully set up in the offensive zone," Ruta said. "We just needed to get the puck to the net and avoid blocked shots. I think we had a lot of good opportunities, but not enough to get a goal."
In its Ivy League opener, the Big Green struck for three goals in the opening frame to put the Big Red (1-6-1, 1-3-0 ECACHL) in an early insurmountable deficit, despite the absence of leading point scorer Sarah Parsons '10 and leading goal scorer Gillian Apps '06, who were competing against one another in the Four Nations Cup in Kitchener, Ontario. On the night, Dartmouth outshot Cornell by a 40-20 margin.
Katie Weatherston '06, playing in her first game since missing the first four contests due to injury, kick-started the offense with two goals, including a wrap-around goal from the right side of the net with less than five minutes elapsed in the first period to open the scoring. Caroline Ethier '07 added another tally eight minutes later when she found a loose rebound and put it past sprawling Cornell goaltender Jenny Niesluchowski.
But the story of the night on Friday was the efficiency of the Big Green's power play unit. Dartmouth converted four out of six chances in man-up situations, peppering Niesluchowski with 13 shots. Kennedy recorded two power play goals, firing a wrist shot off a rebound with 3:11 remaining in the first period to put Dartmouth up 3-0.
She ended the Big Green's goal scoring with an extra-man goal late in the third. Weatherston and McMillan also picked up power play tallies for Dartmouth, and Julia Bronson '09 finished the game with three assists.
The Big Green continues its Ivy League campaign next weekend with a pair of road games. The team travels to Yale for a 7 p.m. matchup on Friday and then heads to Brown for a 4 p.m. game on Saturday.
