Team Notes: Raiders Host Rensselaer and Union

HAMILTON, N.Y. – The Colgate women's hockey team will host two ECAC opponents this weekend at Starr Rink. The team will first play Rensselaer on Friday, Jan. 28 at 7 p.m. followed by Union on Saturday, Jan. 29 at 4 p.m.

This weekend's games will be part of the team's Autism Awareness Project that started earlier this month. The Light Up Starr Rink Blue event will be during Friday's game, which will be televised on Time Warner Cable Sports. The Raiders will be wearing special puzzle-piece jerseys during both games that will be auctioned online through a silent auction. 

Colgate (7-16-2, 4-9-1 ECAC) is coming off a two-game set against No. 2 Cornell last weekend. The Big Red swept the series, winning the first game 6-1 on Friday at Lynah Rink before defeating the Raiders on Saturday at Starr Rink. Sophomore Brittany Phillips scored the lone goal in Friday's game. 

POINT LEADERS
Phillips, who has led the team all season, has a team-high 26 points from 11 goals and 15 assists. She is followed by classmate Jenna Klynstra who has 11 goals and nine assists for 20 points and by senior Jessi Waters who sits at third with 16 points off two goals and 14 assists. 

LEAGUE PLAY
Colgate currently has nine points with a 4-9-1 ECAC record, which has them tied at ninth place with Yale. The team has wins against Quinnipiac, Princeton, Clarkson and Union, while suffering losses to Princeton, Dartmouth, Harvard, Quinnipiac, St. Lawrence, Yale, Rensselaer and No. 2 Cornell. Its only tie was with Brown on Jan. 7. 

Including this weekend's games, the Raiders have only eight games left in the season to secure a spot as one of the top-eight teams in the league and advance to the ECAC Hockey Playoffs that will take place at the end of next month. 

THE SERIES
The Raiders lead the all-time series with Rensselaer, owning a 7-5-5 record since the teams first met in the 1997-98 season. Colgate has a 5-1-3 home record against the Engineers, winning the last three meetings at Starr Rink. Rensselaer won the last meeting 5-4 on Jan. 14 in Troy, N.Y. 

Colgate has a 22-0-0 perfect record in the all-time series against Union that started in the 1997-98 season. The last meeting between the two teams was on Jan. 14 in Schenectady, N.Y., which the Raiders won 1-0. 

SCOUTING RENSSELAER
The Engineers (9-10-6, 7-6-1 ECAC) are coming off a 3-0 loss to Dartmouth and a 2-1 loss to Harvard last weekend. The team, which was picked to finish seventh in the ECAC preseason poll, already has league wins against St. Lawrence, Quinnipiac, Yale, Union, Dartmouth, Harvard and Colgate and has losses to Clarkson, Princeton, Brown, Cornell, Harvard and Dartmouth. Its only tie was against Union on Dec. 4.

Currently tied at fifth place with Princeton in the league standings with both teams having accumulated 15 points, Rensselaer is led by sophomore Taylor Horton, freshman Jordan Smelker and junior Alisa Harrison. Horton leads the team with a team-high nine goals and eight assists for 17 points while Smelker and Harrison are tied at second with 14 points. The freshman has eight goals and six assists while the junior has five goals and nine assists. 

SCOUTING UNION
The Dutchwomen (1-22-3, 0-12-2 ECAC) are coming off a 4-0 loss to Harvard and a 5-1 loss to Dartmouth last weekend. The team, which was picked to finish last in the preseason poll, is currently sitting at the bottom of the league standings with two points from ties against Brown and Rensselaer. 

Union is led by juniors Lauren Hoffman and Lauren Cromartie who both have nine points each. Hoffman has three goals and six assists while Cromartie has two goals and a team-high seven assists. 

ECAC PRESEASON POLL
The Raiders were picked to finish ninth in the ECAC preseason poll that was released on Sept. 16. The defending regular-season and tournament champion Cornell, was picked to finish first with a total of 121 points and 11 first-place votes. Following the Big Red were Clarkson (105, one first-place vote), Harvard (103), Quinnipiac (79), St. Lawrence (77), and Princeton (73), with Rensselaer (70) and Dartmouth (52) rounding off the top eight spots. Colgate (43) along with Yale (34), Brown (24) and Union (11) were the four teams picked to miss out on this season's tournament.

AUTISM AWARENESS PROJECT
The Colgate women's hockey team has established an Autism Speaks U chapter to support the work of Autism Speaks, North America's largest autism science and advocacy organization. Autism Speaks U engages college students across the country in autism awareness, advocacy and fundraising efforts.

The project will kick off with Light Up Starr Rink Blue for the Rensselaer game on Friday, Jan. 28 at 7 p.m. that will be televised on Time Warner Cable Sports. For that game the team will be wearing special edition puzzle-piece jerseys, which will be auctioned online after the game and is looking to have at least 1000 fans attend the game. Free t-shirts, provided by Price Chopper will be given to the first 250 fans. 

The Raiders have also created online puzzle pieces through Autism Speaks, which are digital puzzles to send to family, friends and supporters of Colgate Women's Hockey so we can help put the pieces together and raise money for autism research.

For more information please visit www.colgate.edu/autism.