The Big Green women's hockey team emerged from the weekend with a tie and a win in its final home stand of the regular season. Following a 1-1 defensive battle with Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on Friday, Dartmouth overpowered Union College on Saturday to come away with a 4-1 victory.
Friday's game was the first annual Pink at the Rink Night, an fundraiser for the American Cancer Society sponsored by several ECAC teams over the course of the season. The players' pink jerseys and head coach Mark Hudak's pink tie were posted for sale online, with the proceeds going towards cancer research.
On Friday, after a scoreless opening period, Dartmouth (13-7-5, 10-5-3 ECAC) opened up the second period with a constant stream of shots, totalling 18 attempts over the course of the second 20 minutes. Rensselaer (2-11-4, 5-8-4 ECAC) stacked its defense to withstand the barrage, but Shannon Bowman '09 managed to hit one past Rensselaer's goaltender midway through the period. Bowman hammered home a deflected shot for her fifth power play goal of the season to give the Big Green the lead, but Dartmouth would not score again.
The Engineers managed to even the score on a power play at the start of the third period. After tying the game, they returned to conservative play and concentrated on holding the Big Green at bay. Both defenses controlled the game throughout overtime, and the game ended knotted at a single goal apiece.
Dartmouth outshot Rensselaer 34-16. The game was also the Big Green's seventh overtime contest of 2007-2008, which sets a College record. Dartmouth has a record of 1-1-5 in those seven games, .
"Based on the last couple of games, we will be trying to maintain focus throughout the whole game," Julia Bronson '09 said. "This is always a challenge when defending a lead, but if we can improve on being consistent with our focus, we will put ourselves in a good position of creating the results that we would like in a game."
On Saturday, the Big Green hosted Union (3-22-2, 0-15-2 ECAC) Senior Night, a team tradition during Dartmouth's Winter Carnival. The Big Green's three seniors -- Nicole Ruta '08, Amy Cobb '08 and Carrie Thompson '08 -- were honored before the start of the game. Each senior has played for Dartmouth for four years, contributing to a 77-33-11 record over that time, including championships in both the ECAC and Ivy League.
Ruta then set the tone of the night with a quick goal just three minutes into the first period against Union. After a teammate's shot was deflected, Ruta hit a slapshot that was sent back by a Union defender. She returned fire and this time found the net for her fourth goal of the season.
The Big Green would soon extend its lead on a power play score by Bronson, assisted by Sarah Newnam '09.
When a Union forward began a breakaway near the end of the first period, she was taken down by a Dartmouth defender and awarded a penalty shot. The shot was good and narrowed the Big Green's lead to 2-1, but Union did not stay close for long.
Bronson scored again on an assist by Maggie Kennedy '09, who tied a career high with three assists during the game. Soon after, Kennedy sent a long pass to Sarah Parsons '10, who scored Dartmouth's fourth goal of the night.
The Big Green took 16 shots in the first period, in contrast to three for the Dutchwomen. Union would only take 11 total shots during the rest of the game, while Dartmouth posted an astounding total of 50 shots. Big Green goaltender Mariel Lacina '10 picked up her fourth win of the season in the shutout. The saves brought Lacina's save percentage to an impressive 93 percent on the year.
The Big Green's offensive dominance this weekend bodes well for the remainder of the season. The team has been working on improving power play conversions and it has clearly paid off, as the victory over Union extended a four-game streak of scoring power play goals.
"We made some changes to our power play before going into the game against Brown last week," Bowman said. "I think that it allowed us to get a lot more shots off with consistent traffic in front of the net. We worked hard and created the opportunities for ourselves."
The Big Green is still in fourth place in the conference, behind Harvard (22-1-0, 18-0-0 ECAC), St. Lawrence (21-8-1, 14-3-1 ECAC) and Clarkson (19-6-5, 10-5-3 ECAC). Rensselaer is currently in ninth place in the conference, and Union is still seeking its first conference victory.
Dartmouth goes on the road this week to face Quinnipiac (15-20-5, 2-12-4 ECAC) on Friday and Princeton (12-8-5, 10-6-2 ECAC) on Saturday. Victories in both games would help the Big Green to secure home ice advantage for the postseason. Dartmouth defeated both teams when they came to Hanover in early November.
"We need to focus on executing all the little things that we have been working on all season with lots of energy and grit," Bowman said. "We need all the points we can get [for postseason seeds], and we are in a great position to get all four as long as we play good, hard Dartmouth hockey."
