Season Preview: Dartmouth Ready for Bounceback Season
HANOVER, N.H. -It's that time of the year again; the leaves have changed their color, frost greets every morning sunrise, kids will soon dress up like their favorite cartoon character for Halloween and of course hockey season.
The Dartmouth women's hockey team returns to the ice after a down 2009-10 season (12-14-2 overall and 9-12-1 ECAC). The Big Green will look to its youth as it lost two of the top four scorer's from last season. Amanda Trunzo(Andover, Minn.) headlines the front line where she scored 33 points last year on 18 goals and 15 assists. Joining the senior are sophomores Camille Dumais(Beaconsfield, Que.) and Sally Komarek (Minneapolis, Minn.). Dumais had a stellar freshman campaign, recording 25 points, and Komarek wasn't far behind with 15 points, highlighted by 12 assists.
Overall, the Big Green have 16 returning letterwinners, while losing six from last season. Dartmouth will be without two 100-points scorers in Sarah Parsonsand Jenna Cunningham as well as Sarah Toupal, defenseman Sue Schmitzand two goaltenders in Sarah Kennedy and Mariel Lacina.
Also returning on the front line is Jenna Hobeika (Alpine, N.J.). The junior assistant captain scored 12 points last season on four goals and eight assists.Kelly Foley (Boston, Mass.), also an assistant captain, returns to Dartmouth for her junior season looking to build on a 12-point sophomore season. Returning to the Big Green after taking a year off are juniors Brittany Mills (Winchester, Mass.) and Reagan Fischer (Irma, Alta.). Fischer is an assistant captain this year and scored 26 points (15 goals and 11 assists) when she last laced up her skates for Dartmouth in 2008-09. Mills, also last played in 08-09, playing in 13 contests her freshman year.
Other returning players who will get opportunities on offense are senior Larissa Roche (Thorhild, Alta.), senior Alyssa Boehm (Waterford, Conn.), junior Erica Dobos (Bethel Park, Pa.) and sophomore Jessica Gagner (London, Ont.). Roche has tallied nine points in her career, Boehm has eight, Dobos has four and Gagner scored one in her freshman year. Ali Winkel (Espanola, Ont.) is the lone freshman to join the offense this season. Winkel competed for the Toronto Jr. Aeros before coming to Hanover.
Senior captain Katie Horner (Brooklyn Park, Minn.) will lead Dartmouth on the defensive front. The blueline defender brings three years of experience to the ice along with seven assists. Sophomore Sasha Nanji(Markham, Ont.) is the top scorer on the back line with 19 points (six goals and 13 assists) in her freshman campaign.
The experienced back line is also returning junior Geneva Kliman (Toronto, Ont.), junior Moira Scanlon (Chicago, Ill.), sophomore Lisa Berreman (Eagan, Minn.) and sophomore Margaux Sharp (Carleton Place, Ont.). Kliman played in 27 games last season and has scored 11 points in her career. Scanlon also played in 27 games last season and has tallied seven points in two seasons. Sharp scored three points in her first season and Berreman recorded four.
Two freshmen join the Big Green on the back line in Lauren Kelly (Milton, Ont.) and Ellie Gleason (Edina, Minn.). Kelly joins Dartmouth after competing for the Oakville Ice in the Provincial Women's Hockey league. She was a member of Team Canada's U-18 squad in 2009 and won the gold medal for Team Ontario Red at the 2009 Canadian National Women's Under-18 Championship. Gleason played at Edina High School the last four years and her team was the Minnesota state runner-up last season and finished in third place the year prior.
The goaltending situation will look different than it has in years past. For the first time in two seasons, the regular goaltender will not be a senior. Sophomore Whitney Woodcox (Oshawa, Ont.) will be the lone returner in net. Woodcox played in seven games last year, recording 122 saves in 396 minutes. Freshman Lindsay Holdcroft (Pittsburgh, Pa.) will compete for playing time in her first season. Holdcroft played the last two years on the varsity boy's hockey team at North Allegheny Senior High School. She posted a sub-2.00 goals against average her senior season and became the first female to receive the Pittsburgh Penguins' High School Hockey Player of the Month award in January of 2009.
Dartmouth hosts McGill for an exhibition on Friday, Oct. 22, before opening the season at home on October 29 against Brown at 5 p.m.
Dartmouth head coach Mark Hudak returns for his eighth season. He has recorded 140 victories in his career, which is second on Dartmouth's all-time coaches wins list. Hudak took a couple minutes from his busy schedule to talk about his team and the new season.
What do you take from last year to use as a building tool for this season?
Last year we were very young in a lot of different places. Coming into this year, the freshman class gained a lot of experience last year from playing a lot. I thought they did a great job. I look at our defensive core from last year and for the most part it was the younger kids. They are going to have that year of experience, plus with our captain back there, Katie Horner, we are going to be more experienced and certainly more skilled. Up front, we are going to be a little more balanced as we lost a couple of big point getters for us. With the kids that we have coming back and some of the freshmen we have coming in we are looking to distribute the points more this year. In net, Whitney Woodcox, is a sophomore who didn't play a lot last year, but got a lot of experience through practice, and we are hoping that she can play well this year. We also have a freshman, Lindsay Holdcroft, who is very athletic and we are really excited about her as well.
What is the biggest strength of the team this year?
The strength this year is going to be our depth. I'm really confident in the depth we have in both forward and defense and even in our goalies. It is definitely going to be a balanced team. We hope that we can cut down on our goals against, and improve on our goals for and we'll be in great shape. Our team is working really well together, and the leadership from the senior class has been super so far.
What type of impact will the four newcomers have?
Our freshman class is fairly small, there's only four - a goalie, a forward and two defenders. The freshmen class mirrors the team itself, in that there's depth. We are hoping that all four of those players will compete at their respective positions.
How does the team compensate after losing two-of-the-top-three point scorers?
It happens, and it seems to happen every year. We have always approached it as can we all do a little bit more. Can we get a couple more points out of this person, a couple more points out of that person and so on and then you make up for those points. Hopefully, you have one or two kids that really have a great year putting the puck in the net. Also, we have to do a little bit better job defensively, and cut down some points against us.
Your team was the top power play team in the league and fourth in the nation last season. What makes the team so good with the man advantage?
It's interesting, because our power play has done a great job over the last three or four years. I would like to say it's all the work we do on power play, but we don't do a lot of work on power plays. Sometimes I wonder if less is more, but we focus a lot in practice on the principles of the game. A lot of the drills that we're doing are geared toward odd-man situations. On power play, what you're looking for is those two-on-one situations and taking advantage of it. The work we are doing in practice is designed for kids to recognize those situations.
The team opens up with two home games. What is the impact that has on your team?
It can work for you in both ways. One of the neat things this year is that our opening weekend is also our Homecoming weekend (Oct. 29-30), so we would certainly expect a lot of support. That can also create more pressure with more people in the stands, but it will be nice to open up that weekend here. It has been a while since we opened up at home, especially on a big weekend like this, but I'm looking forward to it. The emotions will be way up there, and in some ways the trick will be trying to keep the emotions in check. We will need to keep our heads about us and play our kind of game.
