HAMILTON – The Colgate women’s ice hockey team is ranked No. 5 in the latest USCHO.com Division I Women’s Poll, the highest national ranking in program history.
With Colgate’s 4-0-0 start to the season, the Raiders are the only perfect team left of the 29 that have begun play in 2016-17. Only three other teams – Wisconsin, 5-0-1; St. Lawrence, 3-0-1, and Robert Morris, 4-0-2 – have yet to lose a game.
Colgate’s No. 5 national ranking comes just one week after the Raiders were ranked No. 6 for the first time in program history. The Raiders moved up to No. 5 despite having a bye week from competition this past week.
In all four games, the Raiders have scored at least three goals and have outscored opponents 17-6 with all four games coming at Class of 1965 Arena.
Four different players have scored six points this season with Cat Quirion (Lac-Megantic, Quebec), Annika Zalewski (New Hartford, New York), Jessie Eldridge (Barrie, Ontario) and Bailey Larson (Sycamore, Illinois) all netting two goals and four assists.
Junior Shelby Perry (Elginburg, Ontario) leads all scorers with three goals on the season while Breanne Wilson-Bennett (Markham, Ontario) and Anonda Hoppner (Carp, Ontario) have each scored two goals as well.
Sophomore goaltender Julia Vandyk (Cambridge, Ontario) is in the midst of a fantastic start to her sophomore season with a 3-0-0 record, 1.01 GAA and .963 save percentage. Vandyk is currently first in the country for save percentage and third in GAA.
Colgate returns to action this weekend with a home-and-home series against Syracuse, starting Friday night in Syracuse, N.Y. at the Tennity Ice Pavilion at 7 p.m. before returning home on Saturday afternoon at 3 p.m. in the Class of 1965 Arena.
