ITHACA, N.Y. – Trailing by a goal with less than a minute to go in its ECAC Hockey Quarterfinal game against Colgate on Saturday, the No. 2 Big Red women’s hockey team only had to look to Friday’s come-from-behind thriller for motivation.
Lauriane Rougeau tied the game with a blast under the crossbar right off a faceoff, and Brianne Jenner snuck the game-winner past Ashlynne Rando short side with one second left on the clock to give Cornell a 3-2 win. It was the team’s second consecutive comeback win against the Raiders at Lynah Rink.
“We found a way to do it, and it was quite an amazing finish,” Cornell coach Doug Derraugh said. “It took a couple years off my life and added a couple more gray hairs to my head, but I’m sure the fans enjoyed watching that game.”
Rougeau’s goal came with 53 seconds to go in the final frame, starting a frenzied celebration and the appearance of another overtime nail-biter. But with Colgate playing for the extra period in a 2-2 tie with under 10 seconds to go, Jenner was not ready to call it quits. She went behind the net, nudged the puck away from a Colgate player, skated inches above the end line and shot toward the near post, just getting the puck by Rando to spark an even wilder victory celebration.
The final faceoff and final tick off the clock was merely a formality.
“Overall it was a great battle from our team,” Rougeau said. “We were down every single game, and we just battled through the adversity. … We kept believing in ourselves that we could come back into the game, and I really give two thumbs to everybody on our team tonight.”
Jenner assisted on the first two of Cornell’s three goals – all of which came in the final period – and Emily Fulton had assists on two. Taylor Woods had Cornell’s first goal just 52 seconds into the third to rally the team after it was unable to beat Rando through 40 minutes. Lauren Slebodnick was unbeatable in the final 40 minutes, earning her 49th career win and making 22 saves.
Jenner scored or assisted on all eight Cornell goals in the two-game series.
With the victory, Cornell advances to and hosts the ECAC Hockey Tournament Semifinal next weekend on a date and time to be determined. The Big Red will play either fourth-seeded Quinnipiac or fifth-seeded St. Lawrence in their semifinal game, while two seed Harvard will play three seed Clarkson in the other semifinal. Colgate’s season comes to an end with the loss.
The teams would have been destined for a winner-take-all third game on Sunday if not for Cornell’s three-goal rally in the third. Woods got Cornell’s first goal after Fulton had a shot blocked, Jenner had her rebound saved, and Woods got over to the right side of the net to poke it home.
That goal seemed to energize the team, but it could not put a puck past Rando for the next 18 minutes. Rougeau’s goal came in an instant and with an extra attacker on the ice. The team didn’t need one. Jenner won the faceoff cleanly back to Rougeau who was waiting at the top right edge of the circle. She put all her weight into a slapshot, and it hit the net just under the crossbar as Rougeau fell to the ice from the effort.
“I just stepped into the puck with my whole body weight,” Rougeau said. “I didn’t even see it go in; I was on my knees at that point. I just heard people screaming.”
Fifty-two seconds after that, Jenner had her game-winner.
“I just figured, throw it on net,” Jenner said. “You never know what’s going to happen. She played great all game, but I thought maybe if I can get it on net with the last few seconds something will happen.”
For the second straight night, though, it appeared the Raiders had the upper hand.
Colgate started the scoring late in the first period when Brittany Phillips put home a rebound on a blocked shot by Miriam Drubel. The power play goal was the Raiders’ fourth in two games.
With nine seconds left in the frame and Cornell on the power play, Colgate struck again. Melissa Kueber made an aggressive play to take the puck from Rougeau at the right point, and she skated the length of the ice on a breakaway to beat Slebodnick.
In the second, Cornell had a phenomenal opportunity to get on the board when Jenna Klynsta boarded Erin-Barley Maloney and got sent to the box for five minutes. But despite all that time on the power play – and 25 seconds of five-on-three at the end – Cornell was unable to put a puck in the net.
With the win, Cornell swept Colgate 4-0 on the season, and the team remains unbeaten at Lynah Rink (15-0-1). Cornell has also won 13 of its last 14 ECAC Hockey Tournament games.
The Big Red will host the ECAC Hockey Tournament Semifinal against an opponent to be determined next weekend at Lynah Rink.
ITHACA, N.Y. – Cornell came from behind three times in their playoff opener on Friday night and still needed overtime to pull out a wild 5-4 win over Colgate at Lynah Rink in Game One of the ECAC Hockey Quarterfinals.
The Big Red got a game-winning goal 39 seconds into the overtime period from Brianne Jenner – her third of the night – after tying the game in the waning seconds of the third period to force overtime.
Monika Leck had the game-tying goal by crashing the crease after a Jenner cut inside with 47 seconds showing on the third-period clock, and she assisted on the game-winner 86 seconds later.
“Obviously an exciting game,” Cornell coach Doug Derraugh said. “Colgate played hard, put us on our heels early. We fought back and continued to work at it, continued to plug away and got the job done in the end.”
Colgate (11-20-3), the eighth seed in the ECAC Hockey Tournament, held leads of 1-0, 3-1 and 4-3 throughout the evening, but the top-seeded Big Red (24-5-1) was resilient each time.
Jenner scored in the second period to tie the game at 1-1, Erin Barley-Maloney and Jenner tallied twice in the third period to knot the game at 3-3, and Leck’s goal with an extra attacker and time running short forced overtime in front of nearly 1,500 fans. The Big Red took a 1-0 lead in the series and can advance to the next round of the playoffs with a win against Colgate on Saturday at 4 p.m.
Lauren Slebodnick earned her 21st win of the season, stopping 15 shots in a game where Cornell outshot the visiting Raiders 48-19. She now has sole possession of second place in team history with 48 career wins.
Though Cornell controlled much of the play, Colgate took advantage of its opportunities on the power play. Each team had three goals with the man advantage, and four of five Big Red goals came with an extra skater on the ice.
Jenner’s game winner was the team’s only five-on-five goal of the evening. After taking a shot from in close that was saved by Colgate’s Ashlynne Rando, she skated the rebound to the end boards and passed to Lauriane Rougeau. Rougeau came up the right side and back into the corner where she threw the puck in front. It trickled out to Jenner, who wristed the puck into the net through traffic to spark a bench-emptying celebration for the Big Red.
Leck’s goal breathed new life into the Big Red, which had fallen behind for the third time in the game on a Colgate power play marker with just 2:35 left in the contest. Jenner took a pass from Cassandra Poudrier into the left side of the offensive zone, and she wristed a shot on Rando from a bad angle. The puck bounced off Rando and into the air, and that’s where Leck charged into the crease to knock the puck in.
“That was exactly the kind of style we need to play in the playoffs,” Jenner said. “Leck made a great play and drove the net. You’ve got to get some dirty goals and some grinder goals this time of the year.”
Early on, the evening had all the makings of an upset.
Cornell got itself into penalty trouble in the first period, committing infractions just nine second apart to put the Raiders up by two skaters. With the extra advantage, Colgate was able to trickle the puck through the crease from behind the net, finding Miriam Drubel on the open side for a power play goal.
The Big Red, on the power play late in the first period, then eliminated its own advantage when Alyssa Gagliardi took a five-minute major penalty for checking from behind. The infraction also came with a game misconduct, and Gagliardi was ejected from the game.
“She’s one of our great players, and we just have to work harder as a team and we have to do it for her,” Rougeau said. “I know that if she was on the ice she would give her heart, so we have to give everything we have and leave no doubt on the ice.”
Once the second period began, Cornell was able to kill off the major penalty thanks to a two-minute chunk being played at even strength when the Raiders went to the penalty box. And shortly after the major expired, the Big Red got another man-advantage opportunity and converted.
Erin Barley-Maloney brought the puck around the net and took a shot quickly on Ashylnne Rando. The Colgate keeper made the initial save, but Jenner threw the puck back into the crease from the left side of the cage. The puck skipped off a Colgate player’s skate and went into the net, tying the game at 1-1 at the 5:31 mark of the second.
But an unfortunate sequence 90 seconds later gave the visitors the lead once again. A weak outlet pass from Colgate’s defensive zone was sent into the middle of the ice where Laura Fortino was ready to make an easy play. Just before she made contact with the puck, though, her stick snapped and the puck kept going. Jocelyn Simpson, suddenly with a three-on-one, passed the puck to Drubel who beat Slebodnick for her second goal of the game.
Colgate extended its lead to 3-1 early in the third period on the power play, but that sparked goals from Barley-Maloney and Jenner to re-tie the game at 3-3. Barley-Maloney put home a rebound of a Jenner shot, and Jenner’s goal came on a one-timer pass from Rougeau. Slebodnick also assisted on that goal, giving her three assists on the year.
Colgate made it 4-3 when Brittany Phillips knocked the puck in a looping arc over Slebodnick from right in front at the 17:25. That was followed a minute and a half later by Leck’s game-tying strike.
Cornell is now 13-1 against New York state teams this season and is 13-1 in the ECAC Hockey Tournament over the last four seasons. Cornell also remains unbeaten at Lynah Rink this year, moving to 15-0-1 at home.
Colgate and Cornell continue their ECAC Hockey Quarterfinals series at Lynah Rink tomorrow at 4 p.m. Cornell would advance to the conference semifinals with a victory on Saturday, and the team would host that game and the conference final in Ithaca as well.
“Coming into tomorrow the pressure’s on them,” Rougeau said, “but we also have to focus because we don’t want to play Sunday. We need to come out strong tomorrow.”
