Women’s ice hockey started off the season with two games against the Holy Cross Crusaders last Friday and Saturday. The Big Green lost 3-2 on Oct. 17 and 2-0 on Oct. 18.
To finish the 2024-2025 season, Dartmouth was ranked 11 out of 12 teams in the Eastern College Athletic Conference. Coming into this season, the team was excited to get back to competition.
“We’ve just been practicing [with] each other for the last four weeks, so we’re excited to compete against someone else with each other,” co-captain Cally Dixon ’26 said.
The last time Dartmouth played Holy Cross was in 2017, when the Big Green won 4-3. With lots of uncertainty about the performance of other teams, the team approached the game by emphasizing their own skill set.
“You can prepare for every team however you want, you can watch videos and all of that, but the only thing you can control is the performance you put up and so that’s what we’ll focus on,” goalie Michaela Hesová ’28 said. “We’ll focus on ourselves and [play] our best game.”
Head coach Maura Crowell has focused on training the team to play a physical and fast game by implementing one on ones, two on twos and three on threes in drills and ensuring the team moves around the ice. With a new specialized hockey strength and conditioning coach, Chase Engdahl, the team has focused on injury prevention, mobility and mental toughness.
Since Crowell’s arrival, the team’s strategy has been layered approaches.
“When you come into our defensive zone, somebody’s going to be right on you,” Crowell said. “If you beat that person, you got to go through somebody else. Then ultimately, if you beat all those people… you’ve got to get through our world class goal tending.”
Holy Cross scored their first goal at the 14:37 minute mark and increased their lead 2 minutes and 6 seconds into the second period. More than 6 minutes into the second period, Kenzington Lehman ’29 scored her first career goal with an assist from Sophia Chard ’29 and Hamilton Doster ’27.
However, Holy Cross increased their lead after a penalty shootout, bringing the score to 3-1. Dartmouth fought back, as Dixon put the puck in the net less than 18 seconds before the end of the third period. However, the effort was insufficient for Dartmouth to grab the win.
On Saturday, Holy Cross defeated Dartmouth 2-0. Goalie Jiahui Zhan ’28 conceded two out of the 40 shots from the Crusaders.
Despite the loss, Crowell isn’t discouraged, “for us it’s very much the process that we’re working on day in and day out.”
Crowell was hired last year and seeks to bring back the hockey program to a time where they were the strongest team in the league. They return to the ice at home in Thompson Arena on Oct. 24 at 3 p.m. against Colgate University and again on Oct. 25 at 3 p.m. against Cornell University.
