The Tigers staging a thrilling comeback to pull off a victory against Brown? The Harvard game ending in a tie? To basketball-mad Princeton fans, these results must sound unbelievable. But, for the No. 9 women's hockey team (11-5-4 overall, 5-4-2 Eastern College Athletic Conference Hockey League), such feats are becoming business as usual.
Coming off a 20-day exam break, the Tigers returned to the ice in fashion on Friday, earning a hard-fought 1-1 tie in a road game against the No. 6 Crimson (12-6-2. 6-1-1). The momentum carried over into their match-up the next day at Meehan Auditorium in Providence, RI, where Princeton scored two goals in the game's final seven minutes to secure a 4-3 road win over the Bears (10-9-2, 3-4-1).
Both games saw Princeton junior goalie Roxanne Gaudiel, who leads the ECACHL in save percentage (.938), hard at work. Fortunately for the Tigers, Gaudiel rose to the challenge. Her 43 saves versus Harvard were a career-high, and she added 34 saves against Brown.
Thanks in large part to Gaudiel's efforts, Princeton will return home for games this weekend against Clarkson and St. Lawrence with a 7-1-3 record over its last 11 games.
The Tigers' lone goal against Harvard gave them an early lead 13 minutes and 16 seconds into the first period. Junior forward Sarah Butsch netted her fourth goal of the season, and her third in a four-game span, off an assist from sophomore defender Dina McCumber. Harvard goalie Ali Boe — who came into the game undefeated and leads the ECACHL in goals against average — appeared to make the save before allowing the puck to slide over the line into the net.
After outshooting Princeton, 9-6, in the first period, Harvard broke through in the second period, taking 16 shots to the Tigers' three and tying the score at the 16:03 mark with a goal by Ashley Banfield.
Princeton's offense continued to struggle in the final period, and Harvard had no trouble attacking Princeton's net — as evidenced by the Crimson's 19-4 advantage in shots taken. Thanks to Gaudiel, however, the Tigers were able to preserve the 1-1 score and bring a point in the standings back from their trip to Cambridge.
The next day against the Bears, Princeton pulled off a come-from-behind victory in a seesaw game complete with some last-minute, open-net excitement. A pair of sophomores, McCumber and forward Kim Pearce, led the Tigers with a goal and an assist apiece.
The game began quietly enough, with a scoreless first period. Just 1:44 into the second period, though, Princeton senior forward Becky Stewart — who had sat out the Tigers' previous four games due to injury — opened the scoring with a goal assisted by freshman forward Brittany Salmon.
Brown would tie the score eight minutes later, but the Tigers, on a power play, responded at the 16:48 mark of the second period. Junior forward Heather Jackson picked up her tenth assist of the season after finding McCumber for the go-ahead goal.
Princeton's lead would hold until near the midway point of the final period, when Brown netted two goals in a span of 2:14 to take the 3-2 lead.
But just two minutes after Brown's second goal, the Tigers answered back. Sophomore forward Liz Keady's eighth goal of the season was assisted by Pearce and tied the game at three. Then, with under three minutes remaining in the game, McCumber found Pearce for her team-leading eleventh goal of the season.
Down 4-3, the Bears pulled their goalie with under a minute remaining. With the extra skater, Brown made the game's final seconds interesting. Ashlee Drover nearly tied the game for Brown, firing a shot over Gaudiel's shoulder that clanged harmlessly off the top post. Soon thereafter, the Bears got the puck to Kathryn Moos directly in front of an unmanned Princeton net. Tiger defenders, though, converged on Moos, preventing the Bear from shooting and preserving the Princeton win.
With the victory, Princeton, currently sixth in the ECACHL, moved to within five points of fourth-place Yale — the team it will likely have to leapfrog in the standings to secure home-ice advantage in the playoffs. If the Tigers overtake the Bulldogs — which their performance this past weekend boosted their chances of doing — they may remind Princeton fans that more than one home team is worth keeping an eye on this season.
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