An hour's worth of ice time was not enough to settle either of the women's hockey games this weekend. Both games went into overtime and ended with the Tigers emerging without a loss, tying Boston College, 3-3, Saturday afternoon and beating Connecticut 3-2 Sunday on a goal by sophomore forward Susan Hobson in the extra frame.
Princeton (3-3-2 overall, 1-2-0 Eastern College Athletic Confer-ence-North) and Connecticut (5-5-1, 3-2-0 ECAC-East) skated a scoreless first period with the Tigers holding a 10-5 shot advantage.
The Huskies' Tiffany Owens gathered first-goal honors, scoring nine minutes, 13 seconds into the second period. Nearly six minutes later, at 15:04, Princeton sophomore forward Gretchen Anderson evened it up, gobbling up a Connecticut turnover and threading an open shot from the right circle past Huskie goaltender Shannon Murphy. Not to be outdone, UConn stormed back two minutes later with a goal from Kimberly Berry at 17:32 to take a 2-1 lead into the final period.
Defender Wanda Mason, a senior co-captain with just one career goal before this weekend, evened the score for Princeton at 3:40 of the third when her blast from the left side ricocheted off a Connecticut defender and past Murphy, assisted by sophomore forward Lisa Rasmussen and senior defender Aviva Grumet-Morris. The final 16-plus minutes of play were tense but scoreless.
Nearly halfway through the five-minute overtime, Hobson provided the heroics, netting the game-winner courtesy of passes from junior Nikola Holmes and Anderson.
Half of the Minnesotan Princeton goalie duo, sophomore Megan Van Beusekom, picked up the victory by stopping 21 shots. Murphy had 23 saves.
The day before their second overtime contest of the weekend was to unfold, the Tigers found themselves clawing with Boston College in another prolonged game. The Eagles (1-7-1 overall, 0-6-0 ECAC-E), though struggling through a winless ECAC season, kept applying pressure to the Tigers when trailing by two goals and managed to escape with the 3-3 tie.
Princeton struck first when Rasmussen scored her fourth goal of the season at 3:57 of the first, assisted by senior defender and co-captain Melissa Deland. The Tigers had control early on over an inferior team but couldn't hold it as the Eagles tied the game when freshman Heidi Siedewand scored on passes from Thia Connelly and Genevieve Richardson. At 15:34 Deland, admittedly not a natural scorer, tossed in the go-ahead goal to give her team the advantage headed into the intermission.
"My goal is to score," said Deland. "It was just a bad turnover by them near the blue line and I was able to take it to the net, punch it in, and give us the lead."
After a scoreless second period, Princeton pushed its lead to 3-1 when Hobson scored at 3:10 of the third period, assisted by sophomore Angela Gooldy and Holmes. That lead held for 13:30 before Boston College blitzed sophomore goalie Sarah Ahlquist, the other half of the Minnesotan goalkeeping pair, for two goals in 17 seconds. Richardson scored at 16:40 for Boston College, followed by sophomore Kaitlin McGrath at 16:57. Despite numerous chances, neither team could knock home the winner, and the game ended 3-3 after overtime.
"We had a huge let down," Deland said of the disastrous finish. "That's been our top priority — not to lose games in the third period or give up goals, so it was definitely a disappointing tie. It was good we were able to win on Sunday, but we were going in there hoping to come away with four points, so coming away with three was disappointing."
Ahlquist had 21 saves to counter Boston College netminder Lisa Davis' 25 stops. Both teams were 0-3 on the power play.
After nine combined penalties in the Boston College game, both Connecticut and Princeton committed just one infraction in their match.
Princeton returns to the ice this weekend when they travel to New York to take on Colgate on Friday and Cornell on Saturday.
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