Women's Hockey: Princeton bounced by 1st-round losses

With just two minutes left in the overtime period on Saturday night, Harvard defender Marissa Gedman took a hard shot from the blue line that skirted through the defenders and ended Princeton’s season. The Tigers (12-15-4 overall, 10-10-2 ECAC Hockey) dropped the first two games of a best-of-three playoff series against Harvard in the quarterfinals of the ECAC tournament.

As the Tigers were the underdogs against the No. 2-seed Crimson (22-8-1, 17-4-1), Harvard had the home ice advantage.

“Whenever we travel up to Boston, whether it’s during the season or during playoffs, we know how special the rivalry is between these two programs, and our team is so excited to be a part of it that we aren’t affected by the crowd,” junior forward Kelly Cooke said.

In her first taste of collegiate playoff hockey, freshman forward Brianna Leahy agreed that the environment was full of more excitement than angst.

“The environment this weekend was noticeably different from all the other weekends in the regular season,” Leahy said. “There was a new level of intensity and focus from every player. It was a great atmosphere to play in.”

The Crimson opened up the series on Friday night with heavy offensive pressure, scoring two goals in the first period. However, the Tigers stayed on par with the Crimson in the second as they each took one goal apiece. Laing opened up the scoring for the Tigers with a scrappy close-range shot, following up on shot attempts by seniors Charissa Stadnyk and Heather Landry.

The Tigers wasted no time in the third, as Laing struck again less than two minutes into the period. With the help of sophomores Gabie Figueroa and Rose Alleva, Leahy found the back of the net less than four minutes later to tie the game 3-3.

The problem with playing catch-up, however, is that the clock eventually runs out. Forward Lyndsey Fry added her third goal of the game for Harvard at 16:06, completing the hat trick and giving the Crimson the lead. Despite pulling Weber for an extra attacker, the Tigers couldn’t push another goal across, and Harvard sealed the 5-3 win with an empty-net goal in the final minute. The Tigers outshot the Crimson 31-20 in the loss.

“After a bit of a slow start on Friday night, we didn’t stop pressuring them for the remaining two periods of Friday’s game and all of Saturday’s game,” Cooke said. “Obviously with it being playoffs, there was the added adrenaline and motivation atop the already established rivalry of our programs, which definitely gave us the confidence that we needed heading into the series.”

The second game was even more dramatic than the first. The Tigers opened up the game with a dominating offensive effort capped by a short-handed goal by Landry. After the initial advance by Landry, the Harvard offense turned into the Jillian Dempsey show. The junior forward netted all three regulation goals for the Crimson, completing Harvard’s third hat trick in as many games.

After a power-play goal at 16:34 in the third gave the Crimson a one-goal lead, Princeton’s hopes of continuing its season were quickly diminishing. This time, however, the extra attacker paid off for the Tigers, as Butler kept the team’s season alive with 1:04 remaining in regulation.

Once Butler pushed the game into sudden-death overtime, the offensive effort of both teams went into overdrive. The Tigers’ best chance at scoring came when they were able to find Harvard off balance, such as when Landry busted out of the penalty box and shot straight at Crimson goalie Laura Bellamy. Laing had another close attempt off of a face-off, but Bellamy blocked both shots.

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The final goal by Gedman ended the season for the Tigers, but it did not kill their spirits.

“This weekend really demonstrated how well we play as a team and how we play for each other,” Cooke said. “Battling from behind during both games showed the determination that our team thrives on. We never gave up, and when Harvard attacked with spurts of energy, we did a great job of matching it and applying pressure on their goalie.”

The Crimson will advance to the ECAC semifinals, facing Quinnipiac.