Women's Hockey: Big upset highlights opening weekend

The Tigers are coming off of a solid 2010-11 season that yielded a 16-14-1 record and a fourth place finish in the ECAC. The Tigers lost three seniors, but they return 82 percent of their point production, including their leading point scorer, sophomore forward Olivia Mucha. Four freshmen have also been added to the roster.

The sophomore class dominated Friday night, with the trio of Mucha, Sally Butler, and Denna Laing combining for nine points and four of the team’s five goals. Mucha and Butler started off the scoring with one goal apiece in the first period. After a Northeastern goal in the second and a quick two-goal surge by the Tigers in the beginning of the third period, the visitors fell behind 4-1.

The Huskies then attempted to make a third-period comeback, responding with two goals within a minute. However, the Huskies spent the rest of the quarter chasing that elusive tying goal and eventually came up short. Tigers junior forward Kelly Cooke closed out the game with an empty net goal in the final 10 seconds of play, giving the Tigers a 5-3 victory over No. 8 ranked Northeastern.

The game was heavily skewed offensively in favor of Northeastern, as the team outshot Princeton 35-12. However, senior goalie Rachel Weber led the defense with 32 saves.

The motto of the weekend thus seemed to be quality over quantity, as Princeton turned around and outshot the Niagara Purple Eagles 28-19 in Saturday afternoon’s game but couldn’t pull out the win. The Tigers lost 3-1.

Laing scored the only Princeton goal of the game, setting the Tigers up with a 1-0 lead halfway through the first period. The defense suffered in the second period, however, as Niagara found the back of the net on three out of 11 shots, including one goal off of a power play.

The Tigers had six power-play opportunities throughout the game, but Niagara goalie Abby Ryplanski stopped all seven power play shots on her way to compiling a total of 27 saves.

Despite a game-high 12 shots by the Tigers in the third period and three minutes of empty-net play, the Tigers could not capitalize and suffered their first loss of the season.

Going forward, Laing emphasized the importance of hard work if the team hopes to be successful.

“We hope to continue working on our special teams (power plays and penalty kills), in order to take advantage of all our opportunities,” she said.

Weber’s return should also be a strong anchoring force on the ice for the Tigers. Described as a “dependable goalkeeper with a calming presence” by head coach Jeff Kampersal, Weber was a second team All-Ivy and second team All-ECAC selection last year. She posted a 1.77 goals-against average, as well as a .931 save percentage that was the best single-season number in school history.

The toughest competition in the ECAC Hockey League for Princeton this year will be No. 3 ranked Cornell and No. 10 ranked Dartmouth. Neither team has played a game yet, but both finished in the top three above Princeton last year in the league along with the Harvard Crimson.

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Both the Big Red and the Big Green swept the Tigers last season, a trend that Princeton will need to reverse if it hopes to top the league in the upcoming winter season.

The Tigers will begin ECAC play this weekend with a road trip, taking on Union (2-5) on Friday and Rensselaer (2-4-2) on Saturday. Both teams were swept by Princeton last year on their way to placing 12th and 8th in the league, respectively.

The Tigers will be looking for a repeat performance this weekend.