Weekend split at Baker Rink

Three months ago, as Fall Break was coming to an end, the women's hockey team took a road trip and came home with a pair of wins over Brown and Yale.

This past weekend, the Bears and the Bulldogs made a trip of their own to Hobey Baker Rink. There was much more riding on this weekend's matches, however, than there was back in November.

The rematches came after a long break for the Tigers and short breaks for the visiting squads. Though Princeton (13-10-2 overall, 11-6-2 ECAC Hockey) claimed another victory over the Bears (7-15-2, 4-13-1), the Tigers were not able to mimic the early November sweep on Saturday afternoon, falling 6-3 to the Bulldogs (13-10-2, 8-8-2). If the Tigers had had a successful sweep, they would have been tied for fourth in the ECAC. Instead, they sit two points behind fourth-place Colgate and a chance to have home-ice advantage for the playoffs.

"We love playing at Baker and love the fans we get when we play at home," senior forward and captain Kim Pearce said. "Although we are taking it one game at a time, we all have in the back of our minds the fight for home ice for playoffs."

Home advantage was not enough to yield a win Saturday, but the cause was not the nearly two-and-a-half-week layoff, as the Tigers came out swinging against Brown during Friday evening's match.

"It was awesome getting back on the ice after such a long break from games," Pearce said. "Everyone was pumped to play on Friday night."

That energy was necessary for the Tigers' transition out of practice and back to game play. It took the Tigers 10 minutes to ease into play, during which Brown took advantage of a power play to put pressure on the Tiger defense and make the Tiger goalie, sophomore Kristen Young, work. Princeton found its stride, and five minutes later senior defenseman Dina McCumber scored her fifth goal of the year off a rebound during a Tiger power play.

Less than a minute later, Princeton scored the winning goal. Pearce, positioned to the left of the Bears' goalie, collected a feed from senior defenseman Laura Watt and neatly deflected the puck into the net.

While the first period was about finding a rhythm, the second was about domination. The Tigers put another two past goaltender Nicole Stock and outshot Brown 14-3.

Princeton's third goal of the night came from senior forward Alison Ralph. The Tigers excelled at capitalizing on rebounds through excellent positioning. Screened after blocking two shots, Stock was unable to stop Ralph's shot to the right side.

Almost nine minutes later, the Tigers struck again with both teams down one player.

"One of the best plays of the weekend came in the Brown game, when Steph Denino scored her first collegiate goal," Pearce said.

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Denino, a freshman defense from Montreal, flicked the puck past Stock's glove side off a pass from Pearce.

"She has been working hard all year and has had some great scoring chances, so it was nice to see her put one away," Pearce continued. "It was a great shot."

In the third period, Princeton outshot the Bears 9-8, but the Brown offense was able to put one away in the third, ending Young's shutout attempt.

Bulldogs break tie, Tigers fall

Coming into Saturday's match against Yale, the Tigers knew they would be in for a dogfight.

"[The] game plan for Yale was to continue with how we played against Brown," Pearce said. "Yale is a feisty team that works hard and drives to the net hard. We had to match that."

After a hard-fought first period in which the Bulldogs outscored Princeton 3-2 and garnered a 22-6 win advantage in face-offs, Pearce broke through the Yale defense singlehandedly 29 seconds into the second period, took two shots and, as she was being taken down, put the third into the back of the net.

Yale took the lead back with a rebound of its own a few minutes later, and Princeton could not recover as the Bulldogs scored twice more in the third to top the Tigers 6-3.

Princeton will go on the road again next weekend, taking on Clarkson and St. Lawrence in its second-to-last weekend of league play.