Women's Hockey: Team gets wake-up call on winless trip

The women’s hockey team had a rough time in northern New York this weekend, dropping both of its games to conference opponents. The Tigers (4-3-1 overall, 3-2-1 ECAC Hockey) struggled to get the puck into the net as they managed only one goal between the two contests.

Princeton fell to the St. Lawrence Saints 4-1 on Friday night before dropping its second game in a close 1-0 matchup to the Clarkson Golden Knights.

Karell Emard put the Saints (5-4-3, 2-3-1) on the board quickly when she beat senior goalie Rachel Weber’s stick side off a pass from teammate Rylee Smith. The Tigers responded, swiftly tying the game at 1-1 at 10:40 in the first period. Freshman forward Brianna Leahy scored her second goal of the season by intercepting a pass and putting it past Saints goalie Caitlyn Lahonen. Unfortunately for Princeton, that goal would be its last of the game.

St. Lawrence was back on top of the contest in short time, scoring the go-ahead goal less than four minutes after Leahy’s equalizer. The Saints’ second goal came off the stick of Bailey Habscheid — marking her first goal of the year — and was assisted by Mel Desrochers.

The Tigers surrendered two more goals in the beginning of the second period. The goals — scored by Smith and Desrochers, respectively — came within one minute and 13 seconds of each other, leaving Princeton down by three with the momentum solely in the Saints’ favor.

While the defense held strong for the remainder of the game, the Tigers could not put the puck in the net despite four power play opportunities after St. Lawrence’s last goal.

In fact, there were no power play goals in the game as Princeton went 0-for-6 and the Saints were 0-for-5. St. Lawrence outshot the Tigers 35-30 on the game and Weber finished with 31 saves to Lahonen’s 29.

On Saturday evening the Tigers returned to action against the Clarkson Golden Knights (7-3-4, 3-2-1), who were fresh off a 3-0 victory over Quinnipiac. The first and only score of the night came late in the first period at 18:57. Juana Baribeau beat Weber for a Clarkson goal after recovering a deflected shot from Hailey Wood. Sophomore forward Sally Butler had a shot at tying the game with a breakaway late in the second period, but Clarkson goalie Erica Howe made the save to preserve the Golden Knights’ lead.

The Tigers finished the second period with 16 shots on goal, but followed that with only four in the final period. In the last minute of the third period, the Tigers pulled Weber to put an additional attacker on the ice in a desperate attempt to knot up the game and send it into overtime. The switch ended up being for naught, however, and the game ended 1-0, marking the first time this season that the Tigers were shut out.

The Golden Knights outshot Princeton by a margin of 31-26 overall in the game, and again there were no goals on power plays as both Princeton and Clarkson went 0-for-6 on the night in that category. Weber finished with 30 saves on the night while Howe had 26 in the shutout.

The Tigers will have to put this weekend behind them as they prepare for the test ahead of them. This Friday, Princeton will return home to face the Cornell Big Red (5-1, 4-1) followed by a Saturday matchup with the Colgate Raiders (4-7-1, 1-3-1).

Cornell comes into the contest sitting at second place in the ECAC and fresh off a 5-3 victory over the Harvard Crimson.

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Colgate is entering the weekend riding a four-game losing streak, but has a chance to right the ship before facing off against the Tigers in its game against Quinnipiac on Friday.