W. hockey continues hot streak with two victories

After a week-long tour of Europe during the second half of Winter Break, the women's hockey team (11-5-0 overall, 4-3-0 Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference) was finally back in action with two games this weekend. They picked up right where they left off by taking both games in impressive fashion.

A 2-1 road-win on Friday against a tough Colgate team (11-7-2, 4-3-0) and a 4-2 victory Saturday over struggling Cornell (2-8-1, 0-7-0) in Ithaca, N.Y., extended Princeton's winning streak to four.

The streak comes after dropping two straight to St. Lawrence in December and is a promising sign that things may be coming together for a team that has very high expectations, yet hasn't quite been able to get things rolling just yet.

In the contest against Colgate, the Tigers' offense put a great deal of pressure on the Raiders' goalie, attempting 41 shots compared to the 15 that Princeton senior goalie Megan Van Beusekom had to face.

Good things usually happen when a team takes that many shots, and that held true for the game. Sophomore forward Sarah Butsch was responsible for the game's first goal, which came off a shot from behind the net that ricocheted off a skate and got past the goalie. The goal was Butsch's third of the season, while freshman forward Laura Watt tallied her sixth assist on the play. The goal came at six minutes, 24 seconds in the first period.

Colgate soon tied things back up at the 15:55 mark in that same period as a shot from the right circle got past Van Beusekom. The score stood at 1-1.

The second stanza was a defensive battle, in which no goals were made by either team. Much of the credit can be given to Colgate's netminder, who stopped a Tiger offense that attempted 13 shots in the period, while the Raiders were only able to get off two.

"We definitely got off a lot of shots," Butsch said, "but we didn't put in as many as we should have."

The intensity picked up in the third period, as both teams tried to break the 1-1 tie. The tiebreaker, and eventual game winner, came from sophomore forward Heather Jackson at the 7:18 mark. The goal, Jackson's sixth of the year, came off passes from senior forwards Lisa Rasmussen and Gretchen Anderson.

For the rest of the game, the pressure was on Van Beusekom, who held up well. She stopped all nine of Colgate's shot attempts in the third period to preserve the 2-1 victory. The win for Van Beusekom was her seventh of the season.

In Ithaca the next day, Princeton again was led to victory by its offense, which took 38 shots in the game compared to Cornell's 23. Winning by a score of 4-2, the Tigers did much of their damage in the first 10 minutes of the second period, scoring two goals during that time, while not allowing any for the Big Red.

Freshman forward Kim Pearce tallied her fifth goal of the season by netting one at 1:11 in the second period, bringing the score to 2-0 after a first period goal by Anderson, her 19th of the season.

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The third goal for Princeton came from freshman forward Alison Ralph on a pass from freshman defender Dina McCumber at 8:24 in the second. The assist was the first of two in the game for McCumber and the goal was the first ever for Ralph.

With a solid 3-0 lead, the Tigers' defense finally gave in later in the second period, giving up the first Cornell goal at the 15:08 mark.

Both offenses were able to put points on the board during the deciding third period. Scoring one each, Princeton preserved its two goal edge, winning 4-2.

The Tigers scored first in the period at the 14:16 mark on a power-play goal from McCumber to Watt that pushed the score to 4-1 in favor of Princeton. The Big Red answered right back two minutes later with a goal of their own, bringing the score to 4-2. Van Beusekom shut it down from there on out, as she accumulated 21 saves to improve to 8-5-0 on the season.

In order to continue on the current hot streak and win their fifth consecutive game, the Tigers will have to wait until after intersession, as they don't play again until Jan. 30 against Harvard.

"The break will be a good test for us," Butsch said. "We have few mandatory practices during that time and when we return we have two tough games right away with Harvard and Brown."