Women's hockey escapes weekend with 1-1 record

Just as it did in the 2003-2004 season, the No. 8 women's hockey team split games with Mercyhurst this weekend. On Saturday, the Lakers (7-3-2 overall, 3-0-1 College Hockey America) pulled out a 3-0 victory. The Tigers came back Sunday to pull their record to 4-3-1 (2-2-0 Eastern College Athletic Conference Hockey League), ousting Mercy-hurst, 1-0.

After being shut out Saturday, Princeton had similar difficulties putting the puck in the back of the net on Sunday evening. But this time, junior goaltender Roxanne Gaudiel was there when it counted, making 34 saves to hold Mercyhurst scoreless. Junior forward and co-captain Heather Jackson scored the lone goal at 15:46 of the second period to put the Tigers ahead, 1-0, and deliver Princeton the victory.

Jackson's goal came when she and sophomore forward Liz Keady worked a two-on-one play against Clark in the Mercyhurst net. The two faced down Clark, and Jackson placed the puck over Clark's shoulder to score the deciding goal.

"For the second game, we were so pumped up to beat them, and we came out flying and full of energy," junior forward Sarah Butsch said. "We all communicated better in this game and put in a solid team effort to pull off the win. Rox [Gaudiel] was really key in this win — she came up with some big saves."

Gaudiel had to come up with key stops to keep her team in the contest because, just as in Saturday's game, Mercyhurst dominated play and controlled the puck throughout the game. The Lakers outshot Princeton overall, 34-12, and in each period — 12-2, in the first period, 12-8 in the second period, and 10-2 in the third. But Jackson's shot was the only one that made it into the net, and the Tigers escaped the game with a win.

In the first game, the Lakers' Jill Nugent and Stefanie Bourbeau scored two goals less than two minutes apart in the opening period, setting the pace for the game. Nugent scored on a power play at eight minutes, 32 seconds into the period, and Bourbeau placed the puck in the net unassisted at 10:51. Danielle Lansing scored the third and final goal for Mercyhurst on a power play, 14:42 into the second period.

"Our first game this weekend was not our best performance this year," senior forward and co-captain Becky Stewart said. "We did not play with any intensity, and the score definitely reflected that."

The Lakers outshot the Tigers, 34-14, in the game. In net, Desi Clark banked her seventh win of the season for Mercyhurst, while Gaudiel took the loss for the Tigers.

Butsch agreed with her teammate.

"The first game against Mercyhurst was pretty brutal," Butsch said. "As a team, we didn't come ready to play. We didn't have the intensity that we usually have, we didn't communicate, and we didn't play like we wanted to win."

Senior defender Katharine Maglione agreed that the team played as if they were suffering from a severe split personality disorder this weekend.

"In the first game of the weekend we lacked energy. We struggled with discipline and communication. We came out strong for the first 10 minutes but then stopped playing as a team after that," Maglione said. "In the second game we came out ready to play. We didn't take a single shift off. Our captains did a great job of getting us pumped up. Despite the tough loss on Saturday, we were resilient and came back with fire on Sunday."

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"Overall, we need to work on being more consistent in how we play and show up to play each game with the same intensity," Stewart said. "We are a talented group of players, and I think we showed a lot of team effort [Sunday], which will only serve to help us through the remainder of the season."