Team Notes: Dartmouth Heads to Fenway to Take on Providence

HANOVER, N.H. — The Dartmouth women’s hockey team got back into ECAC Hockey play last weekend and went unbeaten with a 3-2 victory at Quinnipiac and a 2-2 tie at Princeton.

Against the Bobcats, senior Jenna Hobeika (Alpine, N.J.) scored the game-winning goal early in the third period off a power-play opportunity. In the tie against the Tigers, senior Reagan Fischer (Irma, Alberta) scored the game-tying goal with 2:16 left in the third off a long pass from junior Margaux Sharp (Carleton Place, Ontario).

SCOUTING THE BIG GREEN
The Dartmouth women’s hockey team enters the Frozen Fenway contest with an 8-5-2 record overall, a 5-3-2 ECAC Hockey mark and are 2-1-1 in the Ivy League entering the week. This will mark the first neutral-site game of the season for the Big Green. Last weekend, the team got back into ECAC Hockey play for the first time since Nov. 30.

Through 15 games, Dartmouth has had 16 players record a point, 12 skaters with multiple points and nine players with at least one goal and one assist. Senior Kelly Foley (South Boston, Mass.) leads the team with 16 points on a team-best 11 goals and five assists. Junior Camille Dumais (Beaconsfield, Quebec) is second with six goals and nine assists for 15 points. Fischer ranks third with four goals and eight assists for 12 points. Junior Sasha Nanji (Markham, Ontario) leads the Big Green defensemen with four goals and six assists for 10 points. Hobeika is fifth with nine points on five goals and four assists, and junior Sally Komarek (Minneapolis, Minn.) sits in sixth with three goals and four assists for seven points. Morgan Illikainen (Grand Rapids, Minn.) leads all freshmen with five points on five assists.

Sophomore Lindsay Holdcroft (Pittsburgh, Pa.) has played all but three games for Dartmouth. She has 301 saves, a .923 save percentage, a 2.07 goals against average, a 6-4-2 record and two shutouts in 726:13 minutes.

The Big Green are averaging 2.87 goals per game, while allowing 2.40 goals against. The squad takes 28.2 shots per game and commits 4.00 penalties per game. Dartmouth is 10-for-76 on the power play, converting 13.2 percent of the time, and is 50-for-57 on the penalty kill at 87.7 percent.   

ROAD WARRIORS
The Big Green have been almost unbeatable away from Thompson Arena this season. The win at Quinnipiac and the tie at Princeton improved Dartmouth to 6-1-2 on the road, including unbeaten in its last eight games. The team last loss on the road in the first game of the season at fourth-ranked Boston College on Oct. 23.

PAYS TO SHOOT MORE
The offense forced the action against Quinnipiac and Princeton and outshot each team. It marked the fifth and sixth times this season the Big Green have outshot opponents. In all six games, Dartmouth is unbeaten and has earned the victory in five of the games. When the opponent takes more shots, the Big Green are 3-3-1.

HOT SHOTS PART DEUX
In the tie against Princeton, the Big Green took the more shots on goal than they had in any other game this season with 41. The previous high had been 38 shots in the 2-0 loss at home to St. Lawrence on Nov. 18, 2011.

100 IN STYLE
For senior Moira Scanlon (Chicago, Ill.) the game at Fenway won’t just be remembered because of the novelty of the event, but also because it will be the 100th game she suits up for the Big Green in her career. She becomes the 73rd player in the history of the program to reach the century mark.

Fellow senior Erica Dobos (Bethel Park, Pa.) also reached the 100 plateau against Northeastern on Nov. 26. Two other Dartmouth players have an opportunity to get to triple digits this year as Foley has played in 98 games and Hobeika has played in 86.

NATIONAL RANKING
After not receiving any votes for almost a month, Dartmouth once again received votes in the USCHO.com Division I Women’s Poll. The Big Green received six votes with five teams receiving votes outside of the top 10.

For the first time this season, someone other than Wisconsin topped the poll with Minnesota grabbing the top spot after the Gophers beat the Badgers last weekend. Cornell is the highest-ranked ECAC Hockey team in third. Despite an 0-1-1 weekend, Harvard held on to the 10th spot.

TIES & OVERTIME
The Big Green earned its second tie of the season on Saturday against Princeton. Dartmouth also skated to a 2-2 tie at Clarkson on Oct. 28. With each of its ties coming on the road, the Big Green have not had a tie at Thompson Arena since hosting Clarkson on Feb. 20, 2009. That game ended with the score knotted at four.

With the game going into overtime against the Tigers, it marked the fourth time this season the team has skated an extra session. In those games, Dartmouth 1-1-2. The four overtime contests also tied the amount of overtime games the team played last season. The last time the team played more than four overtime games in a season was during the 2008-09 campaign when it had five.

A LOOK AT THE CONFERENCE STANDINGS
Dartmouth moved up to sixth place in ECAC Hockey with 12 points in 10 games. The Big Green are within two points of third and four points of second. Quinnipiac leads the conference with 20 points in 14 games played. Cornell is second with 16 points in nine games, and Princeton sits in the third with 14 points in 14 games.

SCOUTING THE FRIARS
Providence enters the weekend with a 9-11-3 record overall and a 6-4-1 mark in Hockey East. The Friars beat Robert Morris at home on Saturday, but had lost three straight before the victory.

This past weekend, the team hosted Robert Morris for two home games. The Colonials won the first game 3-2 on Friday. Senior Ashley Cottrell and freshman Beth Hanrahan tallied the goals for the Friars. The next night, Providence ended its three-game losing streak, defeating Robert Morris, 3-1. Three different skaters scored for the Friars, including two in the final period. 

Senior Abby Gauthier leads the team in points with 19 on five goals and 14 assists. Senior Laura Veharanta is second with 18 points on seven goals and 11 assists. Cottrell and sophomore Corinne Buie are tied for third with 17 points. Cottrell has 10 goals and seven assists and Buie has eight goals and nine assists.

In net, senior Genevieve Lacasse has played in 17 of the teams 23 games. She has 445 saves, a .921 save percentage, a 2.25 goals against average, a 6-10-1 record and four shutout in 1,014:42 minutes.

Providence is averaging 2.61 goals per game, while allowing 2.48 goals against. The Friars take 32.0 shots per game and commit 5.70 penalties per game. On the power play, the team is 8-for-125 (6.4 percent) and is 99-for-118 (83.9 percent) on the penalty kill.

SERIES HISTORY
This will mark the 50th time the two teams have played. The Friars lead the series, 28-20-1.  The schools first met on February 7, 1979 at Providence. The Friars dominated the first game, winning 8-0, and won the first 17 games in the series. The Big Green finally won in 1993 at home, but would not win another game against Providence until 1997. Since 1997, Dartmouth has turned the series around, winning 19 out of 22 matches, including the last eight. The two teams played last season in Hanover with the Big Green coming out on top, 3-2.