Team Notes: Dartmouth Hosts UNH for First Home Game
HANOVER, N.H. — The Big Green
opened the ECAC Hockey season last weekend at Clarkson and St.
Lawrence. At Clarkson, Dartmouth tied the Golden Knights, 2-2,
after Clarkson scored in the final two minutes of regulation and
neither team could find the net in overtime. Against the Saints,
the Big Green earned its first win of the season, 1-0, on senior
Reagan Fischer’s (Irma, Alberta) first goal of
the season.
SCOUTING THE BIG GREEN
The Dartmouth women’s hockey team opens the home portion of
its schedule on Sunday against New Hampshire for its fourth game of
the season. The Big Green are 1-1-1 through their first three
contests and are 1-0-1 in ECAC Hockey.
The Big Green are tied for fourth in the conference with three points. Cornell leads the league with six points with a perfect 3-0-0 record. Harvard and Quinnipiac are tied for second with four points with a 2-0-0 mark in conference play.
Dartmouth has three players tied for the team lead in points with three. Senior Kelly Foley (South Boston, Mass.) has two goals and one assist, junior Camille Dumais (Beaconsfield, Quebec) has one goal and two assists and Fischer has one goal and two assists. Junior Sasha Nanji (Markham, Ontario) and junior Margaux Sharp (Carleton Place, Ontario) are tied for fourth on the team with two points each.
In net, sophomore Lindsay Holdcroft (Pittsburgh, Pa.) has played every minute for Dartmouth. She has 86 saves, a .935 save percentage, a 1-1-1 record, a 1.95 goals against average and one shutout in 184:39 minutes.
Dartmouth is averaging 2.00 goals per game and is allowing 2.00 goals against. The team takes 25.7 shots per game and commits 3.30 penalties per game. On the power play, the squad is 2-for-15 for 13.3 percent, and is 9-for-10 on the penalty kill for 90.0 percent.
ECAC HONORS
On Tuesday, ECAC Hockey named Holdcroft the goaltender of the
week. She propelled the Big Green to a 1-0-1 mark this week with 55
saves, a .965 save percentage and a 0.96 goals-against average.
Holdcroft made 31 saves in a 2-2 tie at Clarkson on Friday and then
earned her first shutout of the season with 24 saves in the 1-0
victory at St. Lawrence. It marked the fifth shutout of her
career.
On Oct. 25, after her three-point performance against
Boston College, Foley was named the ECAC Hockey women’s
player of the week. Not only did she have three points in the game,
but she also finished with a plus/minus of +1 and recorded a
blocked shot. One of her goals came on the power play. Last season,
she led the team in power play goals with nine. She increased her
career point total to 72. She has 34 goals and 38 assists.
NATIONALLY RANKED IN THE NET
After Holdcroft’s strong performance this past weekend, she
moved up in the national rankings. She is eighth in the nation in
save percentage at .935 and is ninth in goals against average at
1.95.
In the conference statistics, Holdcroft is fifth in the
league in goals against average (0.96) and third in save percentage
(.965).
HALFWAY TO A HUNDRED
Over the weekend, Nanji passed the 50-point plateau with a goal
and an assist. She recorded a goal in the tie at Clarkson with .6
of a second remaining in the second stanza off assists from
Fischer and Dumais to give Dartmouth a two-goal lead through
40 minutes. Against the Saints on Saturday, Nanji assisted on the
game-winning goal in the 1-0 victory. Nanji now has 21 goals and 30
assists in her career.
NATIONAL RANKINGS
In both national polls, Dartmouth dropped out of the top 10, but
is still receiving votes in both rankings. In the USCHO.com poll,
the Big Green received 11 points and had 9 points in the USA
HOCKEY/ESPN The Magazine National Poll.
Wisconsin is the top team in both polls, receiving all but one first-place vote in each poll.
Cornell and Harvard are the only other ECAC Hockey teams
ranked. In both polls, the Big Red are second, and the Crimson are
10th. Clarkson is also receiving votes in both polls.
NANJI IN THE RECORD BOOKS
Playing as a defenseman, Nanji is scoring goals at a rate few have
done in Dartmouth history at her position. She had 14 goals last
season, which was the fourth highest single-season total by a
defenseman ever at Dartmouth. In 2010-11, she totaled 30 points,
which marked the seventh-highest total by a defenseman at
Dartmouth.
A TIME FOR TIES
The 2-2 tie at Clarkson on Friday marked the first tie for the Big
Green since they tied Connecticut, 3-3, on Jan. 3, 2010. It marked
a stretch of 50 games between ties. Dartmouth has not had a tie at
home since a 4-4 tie against Clarkson on Feb. 20, 2009, which is a
stretch that spans 70 games.
SCOUTING THE WILDCATS
New Hampshire enters the weekend with a 3-4-2 record overall and
are 0-2-1 in Hockey East.
UNH played at Vermont on Thursday and left with a 4-1 loss. Maggie Hunt scored the lone goal for the Wildcats. Before the game at Vermont, UNH had not played since the weekend of Oct. 21-22, when it played at St. Lawrence and Clarkson. Against the Saints, the two teams finished with a 2-2 tie. St. Lawrence jumped out to a 2-0 lead, but the Wildcats tied the game on goals by Emma Clark and sophomore Nicole Gifford. At Clarkson the next night, UNH lost to the Golden Knights, 2-1. Junior Kristina Lavoie scored the only goal for New Hampshire on an assist from Clark.
The Wildcats have three players tied for the team lead in points with six. Junior Kristine Horn has five goals and one assist, Lavoie has four goals and two assists and Gifford has two goals and four assists. Heather Kashman is the freshmen leader with two goals and two assists for four points.
In net, freshman Jenn Gilligan has played a majority of the action. In seven games, she has 140 saves, a .903 save percentage, a 2.12 goals against average, a 2-3-2 record and one shutout in 424:45 minutes.
UNH is averaging 2.00 goals per game, while allowing 2.44
goals against. The Wildcats take 26.3 shots per game, and commit
5.3 penalties per game. On the power play, New Hampshire is
5-for-31 for 16.1 percent, and on the penalty kill, the squad is
39-for-44 for 88.6 percent.
SERIES HISTORY
When the Big Green hosts New Hampshire it will mark the 50th
meeting between the two programs. The Wildcats lead the all-time
series, 34-12-3. The teams first met on January 21, 1978 at
Thompson Arena. UNH won the first contest, 8-3, and earned
victories in the first 14 games between the two squads. Dartmouth
finally picked up a win at home on January 29, 1992. Of late, New
Hampshire has controlled the series, winning six of the last eight
games. The Big Green’s last win against the Wildcats was in
2007. UNH won last year’s contest at home, 1-0. Gifford
scored the game’s lone goal with just over six minutes left
in the third period.
