Harvard Earns Big League Win; Colgate Downs Ranked Opponent
ALBANY, N.Y. -- Harvard earned an ECAC Hockey League sweep over the weekend, downing the top team in the league and No. 2 team in the country in the process. St. Lawrence also earned a league sweep to maintain its position in the standings, while Colgate downed a nationally ranked non-league opponent to cap off an exciting weekend of games.
Along with the games that were played over the weekend, the ECACHL also saw four of its student-athletes named as finalists for the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award (see p. 3). Harvard's Nicole Corriero and Julie Chu, along with Dartmouth's Cherie Piper and St. Lawrence's Rebecca Russell were all named to the list by The USA Hockey Foundation.
Harvard started off its weekend with a 4-0 shutout over Vermont and that proved to be a warm up for Saturday's contest, when the Crimson handed Dartmouth just its second loss of the season. Corriero, the league's Player of the Week, scored five goals on her own in the victory over the Big Green. She also had two goals in the shutout, for a seven-point weekend. Her performances led to USCHO.com's weekly national honors.
The Big Green ended the weekend with a split, after earning a 6-3 win vs. Brown on Friday. Tiffany Hagge led her team overall, scoring five of the Big Green's nine goals in the two weekend games.
Colgate won two of its three games last week, including a win over travel partner Cornell. The Raiders' big win of the week, however, was its 3-0 blanking of No. 7 Mercyhurst on Sunday. Goalie Brook Wheeler stopped all 43 shots she faced in her first action in eight games to earn the shutout. Amanda Barre extended her points streak to eight games over the three contests, with four points vs. Cornell (3g, 1a), and two goals and an assist in the Mercyhurst games.
St. Lawrence joined Harvard as the only other team to earn four league points over the weekend. The Saints earned Ws over Yale and No. 9 Princeton and are now ranked sixth in the national polls. Goaltender of the Week Meaghan Guckian (who also earned USCHO.com's Defensive Player of the Week honors), was solid between the pipes for SLU, stopping 77 of the 80 shots she faced over the weekend. The win over Yale was her third shutout of the year. Classmate Sabrina Harbec earned Rookie of the Week honors after picking up two goals and two assists in the victories.
Other teams earning league points over the weekend included Brown, Yale and Princeton, as the three all split their games.
The coming week features mainly league contests with Union at Harvard for two; Vermont and Dartmouth at Clarkson and St. Lawrence; and Princeton and Yale at Cornell and Colgate. Brown is also playing host to Mercyhurst for two games. Harvard starts Beanpot play and faces Northeastern tonight.
Follow all the action with live stats from most games and postgame stories from all the contests online at http://www.ecachockeyleague.com/.
