After coughing up a three-goal first period lead the first time it played Dartmouth, the Clarkson University Women’s Hockey team made a much slimmer margin stand in the rematch. This time the Golden Knights beat the Big Green 1-0 on Friday night in Cheel Arena.
Clarkson improves to 18-3-2 overall and 6-3-2 in ECAC Hockey games, while Dartmouth slips to 4-12-2 overall and 4-6-2 in conference. The Big Green has now lost ten straight games.
“I thought we put forth a good effort tonight and played a strong game,” said Clarkson Head Coach Matt Desrosiers. “We were able to generate quite a few quality scoring chances for ourselves, but just couldn’t find a way to put them in the back of the net. I also thought we were able to win some battles and blocked a few shots that helped spark the team. The thing that matters most though was we were able to come away with two big league points.”
Clarkson’s goal came less than two minutes into the game. Junior Genevieve Bannon’s tipped the puck to senior captain Shannon MacAulay in Clarkson’s defensive zone. MacAulay took the puck towards the halfway line and then sent a pass to a streaking Loren Gabel. The freshman forward skated in on the Dartmouth goal and her shot caught the crossbar and dropped down into the goal.
For the next 38 minutes, the two teams each had their fair share of goal scoring opportunities, but neither could capitalize. Dartmouth’s best chance came with less than five minutes remaining in the third period. A Clarkson penalty gave the Big Green a man advantage. As Dartmouth used the numbers advantage to apply pressure to the Clarkson goal, sophomore goaltender Shea Tiley lost her stick and had to momentarily use the stick of another skater. Clarkson helped out its goaltender though by keeping bodies in front of the net and was able to kill the penalty and see out the shutout.
Clarkson finished with a 42-22 advantage in shots. Clarkson was 0-2 on power-plays and killed all four of Dartmouth’s extra man opportunities. Tiley finished with 22 saves for her seventh shutout of the season. Her Dartmouth counterpart, Robyn Chemago made 41 stops for the Big Green.
Clarkson will host eighth ranked Harvard in a 4:00 pm game on Saturday while Dartmouth will try to break its losing streak at St. Lawrence at the same time.
