CONCORD -- Where do the loyalties lie when Dartmouth players are members of opposing teams?
Such was the case this past weekend at the ECAC All-Star/US National competition, pitting the Big Green's current stars against their past ones.
Dartmouth forwards Sarah Hood '98 and Jessica Clark '98 and defender Wendy Soutsos '99 traveled to Concord's Everett Arena to play on the ECAC All-Star team. Also on the ice were former Dartmouth stand-outs goalie Sarah Tueting '98 and forward Gretchen Ulion '94. They, however, were on the opposite side of the ice, playing for the US national team.
From the drop of the puck Saturday night, the national team held a clear advantage over the All-Stars, eventually walking away with a 10-1 victory. If nothing else, the shots on goal over the course of the game reflect this. The national team let 76 shots rip, while the ECAC team spread 12 shots over three periods.
"They play very well together," Clark said of the national team. "They also are bigger, stronger, and more confident with the puck. I think we played well with what we had. We worked on playing hard in the defensive zone and picking up sticks."
For three periods, the national team, which will travel to the Olympic Games this winter, hammered ECAC goalies Alana Hayes (Cornell) and Alicia Roberts (UNH). The All-Stars were able to hold off the national team for eight minutes. It was game MVP Karyn Bye who lit the lamp first, putting the national team on the board with a lead the All-Stars were never able to recover.
"Karyn Bye has played for Concordia for the past few years," Hood said. "But I've never seen her dominate a game like that."
In the last five minutes of the first period, the action heightened. National team defender Angela Ruggiero, a high school senior at Choate Rosemary Hall, put away her team's second goal single-handedly. Bye followed suit one minute later, picking up a loose puck and flipping it over Hayes for a three point lead.
The All-Stars got the chance they were looking for with two minutes left in the period. Two national team penalties gave the All-Stars a two-man advantage which Shannon Kennedy (Colby) capitalized on, sinking her team's only goal of the evening off a pass from Danya Marshman (Princeton).
An ECAC lapse in the second period gave the national team five more goals -- two from Jenny Schmidgall and one each from Bye, to complete her hat-trick, Katie King, and Alana Blahoski. The All-Stars appeared fatigued throughout the period and were unable to gain control of the puck under the stress of the national team's attack.
"We stopped winning any one- on-one battles like we were winning before," Hood said. "We started thinking, 'Oh, this is the national team' instead of, 'We can beat them.'"
The ECAC team picked up the pace in the third period, holding the national team to three goals. While the team as a whole demonstrated stronger skills than in the second period, it was goalie Alicia Roberts who deserves most of the credit. The national team proved unrelenting, firing shot after shot on the sophomore goalie. Roberts denied 29 of 31 daunting shots, allowing only two goals.
A scuffle in front of the ECAC net 15 minutes into the period gave Lisa Brown-Miller the chance to get her stick on the puck for the team's ninth goa before they added their tenth score with nine seconds left.
The final 10-1 victory for Team USA doesn't tell the whole story, however. The advantage the national team showed may have something to do with the time its members have put in together on the ice. The All-Stars, on the other hand, had never played together before Saturday's competition.
"I think that had we had even a few practice sessions together before the day of the game, it would have taken two or three goals off the score," Dartmouth tri-captain Hood said.
"Obviously, it was difficult to give our best performance never having practiced together as team," Soutsos said. "That's not meant to take away from the US team because, with all due respect, they were clearly stronger on their sticks and much quicker in their transitions."
Tueting, one of three national team goalies, left Dartmouth after her sophomore year to train with the team. She will return to finish at Dartmouth when the Olympics are over.
Clark, who played with Tueting for two seasons at Dartmouth, said that she enjoyed playing against her former teammate. "She's a great goalie," Clark said. "I wish we could have tested her more for her to show her strengths."
Ulion, who graduated the year before any current Dartmouth players began their careers, left her mark on the Dartmouth women's hockey program, setting 11 Dartmouth four Ivy League records.
These two will return to their home rink on November 18, when the national team will take on the Big Green in Thompson Arena in what promising to be an exciting not to mention emotional show for all of the Dartmouth competitors.
