Women's hockey earns split in final regular-season contests

Now the real fun begins.

The regular season came to an end for the women's hockey team on Sunday, leaving only playoff games on the schedule.

The season did not end as well as Princeton (20-9-0 overall, 12-6-0 Eastern College Athletic Conference) had hoped, as it dropped the finale to rival Harvard (25-3-1, 15-3-0), 2-0. The weekend was not without some success, however, as the Tigers toppled Brown (16-10-2, 12-5-1) on Saturday, easily winning, 6-3.

The loss to the Crimson evened the season series at one game apiece, as Princeton recorded an upset victory earlier in the year. Away from the comforts of Baker Rink, the Tigers struggled in Cambridge to even get shots off, and were never able to get on the board.

"Against Harvard, we were ready to play," head coach Jeff Kampersal '92 said. "We played with heart, but in the end we didn't break out well enough, which didn't allow us enough offense."

Harvard on the other hand, had little trouble finding room to shoot. The Crimson attempted a whopping 42 shots compared to Princeton's 19. Clearly, things could have been much worse had it not been for the stellar play of senior goalie Megan Van Beusekom, who recorded 40 saves on the night. Two goals were scored, but only one came against her, as the final goal was an empty-netter at 18 minutes, 36 seconds in the third period, after she had been pulled.

After a scoreless first period, the first goal came midway through the second on a slapshot from the left wing that just got past Van Beusekom inside the left post.

With the win over Princeton, the Crimson clinched a share of the ECAC title. They will be the No. 1 seed in the upcoming playoffs.

"It was nice to end the regular season with good matchups against such solid opponents," senior forward Gretchen Anderson said, "and I think it will prove to help us in playoffs to have our most recent games be against such strong competition."

The previous night's game was certainly more enjoyable for the Tigers, as they defeated Brown. The final 6-3 tally was in Princeton's favor, evening the season series.

The story of this game, as it has been for several games this season, was Anderson. Anderson, who has been named a finalist for the Patty Kazmaier Award — given to the sport's best collegiate player of the year — racked up four points in the game, including a natural hat trick, with all three goals coming in the final period.

Princeton started out slowly, however, and allowed Brown to jump out to a 2-0 lead after the first period. Sophomore forward Heather Jackson started the offense at 5:44 in the second, cutting the Bears' lead in half with her 12th goal of the season. Jackson was the other offensive star of the game, recording three points.

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Brown then pushed the score back to 3-1 before back-to-back goals by senior defender Angela Gooldy and sophomore forward Sarah Butsch evened things up going into the third.

From there, it was all Anderson, who got her first goal and the Tigers' first lead 2:21 into the third period on a nice setup by Jackson. Anderson then scored two insurance goals later in the period at 18:06 and 19:30 to give Princeton a 6-3 victory.

The game against the Bears was a prelude to the first-round playoff match up between the two teams in Providence this weekend.

"I think it is an advantage to have just beaten Brown, especially in their own rink," Anderson said. "We know we need to work even harder than we did last weekend to beat them twice."