Team Notes: Dartmouth Looks to Continue Unbeaten Streak

Photo by Mark Washburn

HANOVER, N.H. — Last weekend, Dartmouth upset second-ranked Cornell in Ithaca, 5-4. The Big Green used the momentum the next night earning a 2-0 shutout at Colgate. Against the Big Red, sophomore Ali Winkel (Espanola, Ontario) had a career night with a hat trick and an assist for four total points.

At Colgate the next night, Dartmouth scored two goals in the first 11 minutes of the opening period and held on to a 2-0 victory. Junior Camille Dumais (Beaconsfield, Quebec) scored the first and game-winning goal four minutes into the game. Sophomore Lindsay Holdcroft (Pittsburgh, Pa.) made 20 saves to earn the victory and her second shutout of the season.

SCOUTING THE BIG GREEN
The Dartmouth women’s hockey team welcomes St. Lawrence and Clarkson to Thompson Arena this weekend with the Big Green riding a two-game winning streak. Dartmouth is 3-2-1 overall, is unbeaten in ECAC Hockey play at 3-0-1 and is 1-0-0 in the Ivy League.

The team is tied for third with Clarkson and Princeton in ECAC Hockey with seven points. Both the Golden Knights and the Tigers have played two more games than the Big Green. Quinnipiac leads the conference with nine points on a 4-1-1 record and Cornell is second at 4-1-0 with eight points.

Through six games, Dartmouth has had 11 players record a point, eight skaters with multiple points and five players with at least one goal and one assist. Senior Kelly Foley (South Boston, Mass.) leads the team with eight points on a team-best five goals and three assists. Dumais and senior Reagan Fischer (Irma, Alberta) are tied for second with seven points. Dumais has three goals and four assists and Fischer has one goal and a team-high six assists. Junior Sasha Nanji (Markham, Ontario) leads the Big Green defensemen with two goals and three assists for five points. Illikainen leads all freshmen with three points on three assists.

Holdcroft has played all but one game for Dartmouth. She has 99 saves, a .943 save percentage, a 2.28 goals against average, a 3-1-1 record and two shutouts in 304:39 minutes.

The Big Green are averaging 2.83 goals per game, while allowing 2.50 goals against. The squad takes 24.3 shots per game and commits 4.00 penalties per game. Dartmouth is 5-for-33 on the power play, converting 15.2 percent of the time, and is 19-for-22 on the penalty kill at 86.4 percent.

WINKEL’S CAREER NIGHT
Against Cornell, Winkel had the best night of her career with three goals and an assist. It marked her first career hat trick, first career multi-point game, first career game-winning goal and first and second career power play goals. She also more than doubled her career point total in the contest. She entered the contest with three career points on one goal and two assists, and left Ithaca with seven career points on four goals and three assists.

The last time the Big Green had a player record a hat trick was when Dumais had three goals and an assist in a 6-0 victory at Brown on Jan. 29, 2011.

TAKE THE BROOMS ON THE ROAD
With the win at Cornell and Clarkson, Dartmouth earned a weekend road sweep on an ECAC Hockey road weekend for the first time since Feb. 11-12 at St. Lawrence (3-2) and Clarkson (3-1).

The Big Green haven’t lost on the road in ECAC Hockey this season after playing to a draw at Clarkson on Oct. 28 and defeating St. Lawrence on Oct. 29. Dartmouth hasn’t lost on the road in ECAC Hockey since a 5-2 defeat at Rensselaer on Jan. 7, 2011, a span of nine games.

ECAC HONORS
For the third time in a month, the Big Green earned a weekly ECAC honor. Winkel was named ECAC Hockey Player of the Week on Nov. 15. The sophomore earned the honor after her four-point performance at Cornell last weekend.

On Nov. 2, ECAC Hockey named Holdcroft the goaltender of the week. She propelled the Big Green to a 1-0-1 mark last 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.

SCOUTING THE SAINTS
St. Lawrence enters the weekend 5-4-3 overall and 2-3-1 in ECAC Hockey. In the conference, the Saints are tied with Brown for seventh with five points.

Last weekend, St. Lawrence hosted Princeton and Quinnipiac and earned a split. On Friday, the Saints jumped out to an early lead and held on to beat the Tigers, 4-1. St. Lawrence used a balanced attack in the victory with each goal scored by a different skater. Against the Bobcats the next night, the Saints scored the first goal of the contest, but Quinnipiac used three first period goals to leave with a 3-2 win. 

Senior Karell Émard leads St. Lawrence in points with 13 on four goals and nine assists. Junior Kelly Sabatine and sophomore Rylee Smith are tied for second with 12 points. Each player has five goals and seven assists.

In net, freshman Carmen MacDonald has played in seven games and sophomore Caitlyn Lahonen has played five. MacDonald has 191 saves, an .897 save percentage, a 3.09 goals against average and a 2-3-2 record in 366:16 minutes. Lahonen has 113 saves, a .934 save percentage, a 1.59 goals against average and a 3-1-1 record in 301:42 minutes.

The Saints are averaging 2.83 goals per game, while allowing 2.50 goals against. St. Lawrence takes 32.5 shots per game, and commits 5.7 penalties per game. On the power play, the Saints are 8-for-71 for 11.3 percent, and on the penalty kill, the squad is 55-for-66 for 83.3 percent.

SERIES HISTORY
Friday will mark the 54th match up between the two schools. The Big Green lead the series with a 29-22-2 record. The two teams first met on February 17, 1975 at St. Lawrence, with the Saints winning, 4-3. Dartmouth won 19 of the first 24 contests, but St. Lawrence won a majority of the games in the 2000’s. Last year, the teams played twice with each team winning on the road. At Canton three weeks ago, the Big Green earned a 1-0 victory over the Saints.

SCOUTING THE GOLDEN KNIGHTS
Clarkson is 7-3-4 overall entering the weekend and 3-2-1 in ECAC Hockey. In the league, the Golden Knights are tied with Dartmouth and Princeton for third place with seven points.

This past weekend, Clarkson hosted Quinnipiac and Princeton and won both games. Against the Bobcats, the Golden Knights earned a 3-0 victory with senior Juana Baribeau leading the team with one goal and one assist. In the game against the Tigers the next night, Baribeau scored the game’s only goal in the first period to give Clarkson a 1-0 win.

Sophomore Jamie Lee Rattray leads the team with 16 points on five goals and 11 assists. Sophomore Carly Mercer is second with six goals and seven assists for 13 points. Junior Danielle Skirrow is third with nine points on five goals and four assists.

In net, sophomore Erica Howe has played every game for the team. In 14 games, she has 320 saves, a .925 save percentage, a 1.82 goals against average, a 7-3-4 record and three shutouts in 858:29 minutes.

The Golden Knights are averaging 2.36 goals per game, while allowing 1.86 goals against. Clarkson takes 30.4 shots per game, and commits 4.4 penalties per game. On the power play, the squad is 11-for-58 for 19.0 percent, and on the penalty kill, the team is 54-for-60 for 90.0 percent.

SERIES HISTORY
The contest will mark the 23rd time the two teams have met on the ice. Dartmouth leads the all-time series, 12-6-4. The first meeting between the two schools took place on February 10, 1979. The Golden Knights won the contest, 3-2, in overtime at Thompson Arena. Last year, the two teams played five times, including three times in the first round of the ECAC Tournament. The squads split during the regular season with each team winning on its home ice. In the tournament, Dartmouth won the best-of-three series, 2-1, by winning the third contest in overtime. This season, the teams played to a draw, 2-2, at Clarkson on Oct. 28.