Meat Loaf once sang that two out of three ain't bad. Three out of four is even better.
Women's hockey made good with their four non-conference Winter Break contests, going 3-1. The victories included a 1-0 shutout of Ohio State, a 4-1 drubbing of Boston College, and a tight 4-3 win over No. 6 Providence. The wins were sandwiched around a lone slipup — a 4-0 loss in the team's second meeting with the Buckeyes.
The sweetest game came in the finale of break. The Tigers (10-4-2 overall, 3-1-0 Eastern College Athletic Conference) were in Rhode Island Sunday afternoon to take on No. 5 Providence (10-5-3). Thanks largely to Eastern College Athletic Conference Goalie of the Week junior Megan Van Beusekom's stellar 47-save performance in net, the squad pulled off the road upset with a narrow 4-3 win.
The Friars had the advantage through much of the game, taking leads of 1-0, 2-1, and 3-2 while bombarding Van Beusekom with pucks. Katelyn Laffin got Providence started with a power play goal at 5:01 of the first, but junior forward Lisa Rasmussen had the equalizer just over a minute later. After the Friars' Gretchen Gottwald put the Tigers in another hole, junior forward Gretchen Anderson tied it up at 15:40 with a power play score.
Providence out-shot Princeton 14-7 in the first and came out firing in the second. Laffin scored again just 1:14 into the period, and the Tigers found themselves facing another huge shot disparity — 17-7. But with less than three minutes left, freshman forward Heather Jackson netted a shorthanded goal for Princeton to tie it at three after two periods.
The Friars would outshoot the Tigers an astounding 17-3 in the third period, but Princeton had good fortune on its side. Freshman forward Tarah Clark scored her fourth goal of the season midway through the third. The Tigers held on until the final horn and went home for finals with a 3-1 break record.
"I liked the Providence win," head coach Jeff Kampersal '92 said. "We were down three times and we fought back."
Ohio State visited Baker Rink Dec. 13 and 14 and left with a shutout win and a shutout loss. Princeton rebounded from a 5-1 loss to national power St. Lawrence before the break with a 1-0 victory over the Buckeyes (6-12-2) in the first game of the weekend set.
After a scoreless first period, Anderson punched in the game's lone goal at 15:39 of the second, sliding a pass from senior forward Andrea Kilbourne — the team's leading scorer — off the skate of an Ohio State defender and past goalie Natalie Lamme. Van Beusekom made 21 saves, including eight in the third period, to earn the victory. Lamme faced just 13 shots in the losing effort.
"We played pretty well Friday night," Kampersal said. "Megan did a good job. We played evenly the whole game, and we just got one by."
The next night started off much the same — with a scoreless first period — but things went south quickly for the home squad in the second.
Three Buckeye goals melted the ice underneath the No. 10 Tigers and drowned the team in a deficit it would not recover from. Ohio State's Jeni Creary started the onslaught with a goal just 56 seconds into the middle period, and Emma Laaksonen made it 2-0 just 1:30 later with a power play score. Jana Harrigan added the third at 9:31. Laaksonen added her second goal at 7:41 of the third to complete the scoring in the 4-0 win.
"We maybe thought it would be easier the second time around," Kampersal said.
After a two-week holiday break, Princeton took to the road this weekend to take on Boston College and Providence, the Tigers final two non-conference games on the schedule.
The Tigers found the remedy for their disappointing loss to Ohio State in Massachusetts as they pounded the Eagles (7-6-2), 4-1.
Anderson started the scoring at 8:48 of the first off assists from Kilbourne and senior forward Nikola Holmes. With less than a minute left in the first, Anderson returned the favor as Kilbourne found the net to make it 2-0 Princeton.
Junior forward Susan Hobson scored at 6:20 of the second, and Kilbourne chipped in her second score less than two minutes later with another assist from Anderson and one from junior defender Angela Gooldy to move the score up to 4-0.
The Eagles' Kristin Blundo scored at 11:23 of the third, but it was not enoug, as the Tigers cruised to the three-goal victory.
Princeton is now 6-1-1 in the first game of their weekend two-game sets but just 4-3-1 in the second game.
The meat of the ECAC schedule starts this weekend for the Tigers as they host Brown and Harvard at Baker.
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