The women’s hockey team begins its final homestand tonight, hosting No. 5 Harvard University at Thompson Arena. Next weekend, the Big Green (7-15-1, 6-10-1) remains at home to play St. Lawrence University and No. 3 Clarkson University before hitting the road to finish the season against Brown University and Yale University.
These final five games are crucial for the Big Green women, as they currently occupy the eighth and final playoff spot in the ECAC standings, owning the tiebreaker over Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute thanks to a season sweep of the Engineers. This season, the ECAC standings are top-heavy, with Harvard (17-3-3, 13-2-2 ECAC), Clarkson (21-4-3, 12-2-2 ECAC) and No. 5 Cornell University (16-3-4, 11-2-3 ECAC) outpacing the rest of the pack by a four-point margin.
“I think that it’s going to be a tough couple of games, but at this point, if we want to move up, we have to beat the teams above us as well as below us,” captain Lindsay Holdcroft ’14 said. “Last time against Harvard, we didn’t play our best and I think that we can give them a run for their money this time.”
Despite facing two of the top three teams in the season’s final three weeks, the Big Green sits in a relatively good position for the postseason in a competitive five-way race for fourth place, which is good enough to host a playoff series. The Big Green will need to pull an upset to vault into fourth, but the team has a good chance of moving up in the standings, as it is only three points out of sixth in the league.
“We hold our season in our hands, so if we win the games we should and pick up one that we might not be expected to, we’ll be in great position for the playoffs,” Laura Stacey ’16 said.
The last time the Big Green played Harvard, Dartmouth was shut out 5-0, its largest defeat of the season. Though Dartmouth outshot the Crimson 25-19, the team failed to put the puck past sophomore netminder Emerance Maschmeyer. The team was haunted by an 0-6 night with the man advantage.
The Crimson offense is potent and its defense is staunch. The team from Cambridge has outscored opponents 65-30 this season. Maschmeyer posts a remarkable .949 save percentage, 1.51 goals against average and 13 wins in her sophomore campaign.
Despite the tough opponent and previous loss, the Big Green is confident that it can get back on the right foot and pick up some points this weekend against the Crimson.
“Their goalie played a really solid game so that’s definitely something we’ll have to get past tomorrow,” captain Ali Winkel ’14 said. “They didn’t outplay us, they just capitalized on our small mistakes.”
The team has prepared by watching video footage of the Harvard team, so the women have a better understanding of how they play, Stacey said.
“Last time, we didn’t play our best game and didn’t know what to expect,” Stacey said. “We’re going to play with our hearts and play our game. If we do that, we’re bound to do some good things out there and maybe we can pull off the big win.”
The Big Green is coming off a tough weekend on the road against No. 8 Quinnipiac University and Princeton University. The team lost both hard-fought games, falling to the Bobcats 3-1 before being defeated by the Tigers 3-2.
Holdcroft’s spectacular saves kept the Dartmouth women in both games. Against Quinnipiac, the Big Green was outgunned on the offensive side, managing only 16 shots on goal. The team bounced back the next night, firing 26 shots on the Tigers’ net, but surrendering 28.
“We need to work on our offensive zone and getting shots to the net and getting more traffic in front,” Holdcroft said.
One strong point for the Big Green was its penalty kill. The team held its opponents to a combined 1-13 with the man advantage, including killing off nine of the 10 Tigers’ power plays. In order to stay competitive this weekend, the Dartmouth women must stay out of the box. The Crimson boasts an impressive 18.2 percent efficiency on the power play in ECAC play.
“Against Quinnipiac, the refs weren’t really calling a lot, so we were able to play a little more,” Holdcroft said. “Against Princeton, the refs called a much tighter game, which was tough since it was so close. We need to be smarter and not take as many penalties since it hurt our chances of a comeback.”
The weekend sweep ended the Big Green’s three-game winning streak. The team did not lose ground in the ECAC, however, thanks to losses by RPI and Yale. The three teams are separated by one point in the standings.
“We don’t want the season to end early, so we’re going to do whatever it takes to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Stacey said. “This weekend, if we finish everything we start, we’re bound to have good things happen to us.”
Winkel said that the team is focusing on the little things against the Crimson in order to try to find success.
“We’ve been hitting our stride and playing better lately,” she added. “We’re just going to keep our energy high and be gritty out there.”
The puck drops against Harvard at 7 p.m.
