The women’s hockey team beat Brown University 5-0 on Saturday, snapping a 15 game winless streak. The team fell to Yale University the night before in overtime 4-3. The Big Green’s first win of 2016 improved the team to 5-16-3 overall and 5-10-3 in ECAC hockey play.
“Overall, we had a good weekend and we outplayed both Yale and Brown, but Yale was able to capitalize on our defensive mistakes,” Hailey Noronha ’18 said. “It was great I was able to get my second goal of my career and help the team out against Yale. Goals don’t come all the time and I think I was able to contribute to the win today.”
Noronha added that everyone played great and succeded in their individual roles perfectly.
On Saturday, the Big Green faced the Bears for a second time this season after Dartmouth’s 4-0 win back in November and proved themselves the better team again, defeating the Bears 5-0 on Senior Day for the Big Green.
With a big crowd at home, the Big Green started the first period off strong. The Bears opened the scoring with an own goal at 3:24. Pressure mounted as Kennedy Ottenbreit ’17 passed the puck to Lindsey Allen ’16 who shot at net minder Julianne Landry. The Bears failed to clear the puck and knocked it into their own net.
The Big Green had a 16-5 shot advantage in the first period, but the second was a less eventful, more balanced affair. On a power play in the second half, Ottenbreit scored after a cross from Eleni Tebano ’17 which deflected off Landry’s glove to give Dartmouth the 2-0 lead.
Starting in the third, the Big Green proved too much for the Bears as Laura Stacey ’16 scored at 7:24 when Ailish Forfar ’16 passed to her. The puck was caught but not secured and dropped into the net to put the Green up 3-0. Stacey then added a goal in the empty net at 17:37 to bring her tally to 10 goals on the season. Forfar then tacked on a goal at 19:57 in the right side of the net to finish the game 5-0.
“We’ve been continuing to work on finding ways to produce some offense and score goals,” head coach Mark Hudak said. “We saw a bit of that this weekend, but we are trying to not lose focus on defense.”
Hudak said that the team unfortunately had a loss to Yale in overtime but that everything paid off on Saturday.
“We had a great weekend as a team and it was nice that things finally clicked for us on Saturday night,” Stacey said.
The Big Green outshot Brown 38-13 and was effective, 2-4, on the power play while the Bears went 0-5. Robyn Chemago ’17 got the shutout and had 13 saves compared to Landry’s 33 stops.
“Robyn had a really good game and was solid picking up the shutout,” Hudak said. “The team in front of her did a good job so she can see the puck so she can be on top of things.”
The first period of Dartmouth’s 4-3 loss to Yale was balanced between the Bulldogs and the Big Green, with Yale opening the scoring at 5:52 when Hanna Astrom managed to put the puck into the net.
A few short moments after, Forfar and Kate Landers ’19 took successive shots on net minder Hanna Mandl which created a havoc in front on the net with Noronha poking the puck in with her second goal in as many games. Before intermission however, the Bulldogs scored at 19:42 on a nice team goal to lead 2-1 into the second.
The Big Green outshot the Bulldogs 13-8 during the first period.
The second period was quiet until Yale scored to get a 3-1 lead at 2:09, but Tebano responded with her first goal of her season, assisted by Ottenbreit and Stacey, after she scored with a shot hitting the crossbar and crossing the line.
Going into the third trailing 3-2, Forfar circled Mandl and scored at 1:35 tying the game at 3-3. Neither team was able to grab the game-winning goal in regulation, but at 3:17 in overtime, Yale scored on a shot that went past Chemago to end the game.
The Big Green outshot Yale 32-19 and went 3-5 on power plays while the Bulldogs went 0-5. Net minder Chemago had 15 saves while Mandl had 29.
“We are definitely on an uphill climb and I am really excited for these last two regular season weekends,” Stacey said. “We have found a way to put the puck in the back of the net and hopefully we can gain some confidence and momentum from this weekend and carry it with us the rest of the way.”
With only road games left for the Big Green, Dartmouth will face Union College on Friday and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute the next day.
“In order to start a win streak we need to keep riding on the high of our win today,” Noronha said. “We know what we are capable of and we just need to continue to be confident and consistent. Going on the road is tough. This [win] bodes well going to the last couple road games. Every minute of every game counts and I look forward to seeing what these next weeks hold for us.”
