Icers head to No. 1 Mercyhurst

At 8:30 a.m. most Princeton students are still sleeping. If they're not, they wish they were. Yesterday, not only was the women's hockey team up at 8:30, it was piling onto a bus headed to Erie, Pa., gearing up for the opening face-off for its games against No. 1 Mercyhurst College.

The Tigers (8-2-2 overall, 8-1-1 Eastern College Athletic Conference Hockey League), coming off a rough weekend which ended their win streak with losses to Harvard and Dartmouth, will take on the Lakers (13-1-1) twice this weekend: once on Friday evening and again on Saturday afternoon.

"It'll be a huge challenge for us to go on the road and play those guys," head coach Jeff Kampersal '92 said.

Challenging is certainly a good way to describe the upcoming games with Mercyhurst. While Princeton's shot percentage is slightly better at .111 than the Lakers' .109, Mercyhurst has put away 53 goals this season, 14 more than the Tigers. Another aspect of the game where the Orange and Black will have their work cut out for them is defending power plays. The Lakers have scored 22 goals in 96 power plays. While the Tigers' defense has been strong all season, Princeton took an inordinate number of penalty kills early in the season, and any return to that state would be a huge liability.

"In the beginning [of the season] we took a boatload of penalties," Kampersal said. "We've done a better job at staying out of the penalty box, and so that obviously helps because a team like Mercyhurst, their power play is scary, if we give them any chances they're going to score two or three times based on what they've done this season."

With that knowledge firmly ensconced in their minds, the hockey team came into practice this week excited about the upcoming game despite its recent disappointing losses. Last weekend could serve as the necessary wakeup call the team needed in order to really reach its potential. Kampersal was pleased with three of the six periods of hockey the team played last weekend. Unfortunately, those three periods didn't comprise one game.

"We have an amazing group of kids, they have a lot of character, they love to play, love to compete," Kampersal said. "Still, in one sense we've been playing a little bit above average all year and then getting wins. I thought we played really really well in the first two periods of the Dartmouth game, and really well in the first period of the Harvard game, we just still need to string together 60 minutes. They know what kind of team, potentially, they could be, not only this weekend but the rest of the year."

If the Tigers want to come out on top this weekend they will need to keep an eye on forward Stefanie Bourbeau, who leads the Lakers in scoring with 11 goals. The Princeton defense will also have to watch out for forward Meghan Agosta, who leads the Lakers in total points with nine goals and 14 assists.

Mercyhurst, however, isn't ranked number one solely because it has a pair of good players. It has reached that ranking because it is a strong team which will be difficult to beat.

"All of our players need to play their best, no question, and play for 60 mintues. We've strung minutes together, periods together, but not a whole game yet," Kampersal said. "You don't get the opportunity to play the No. 1 team in the country too often, so I feel like this is a good chance to go out there and compete."

Princeton will certainly give it the old college try, and getting to Erie a day early in order to practice on the Mercyhurst ice and "lose the bus legs" is indicative of how much hard work and effort the team is willing to put forth in order to succeed.