Women's hockey defeats Union and RPI on successful New York road-trip

After a tough home stand last weekend, the No. 8/8 women’s hockey team (7–2–0 overall, 5–2–0 ECAC) headed to upstate New York to take on Union (2–9–1, 2–3–0 ECAC) and RPI (0–12–1, 0–6–0 ECAC). On Friday, the Tigers started slow but responded quickly and ended up dominating the Dutchwomen winning 7–2. Princeton continued its strong road presence defeating the Engineers 4–1.

On Friday, the Tigers came out sluggishly and gave up an early goal to Union. After the first intermission, a spark seemed to ignite in Princeton. Started by sophomore forward Sarah Fillier, who was playing her first game back in orange and black since a pair of exhibition games with Team Canada, the Tigers were able to tie the game on freshman defender Solveig Neunzert’s first career goal assisted by Fillier. Only 13 seconds later, sophomore forward Maggie Connors, assisted again by Fillier, found the back of the net to give Princeton its first lead of the game. Shortly after the period crossed the halfway point, senior forward Carly Bullock scored assisted by Connors and freshman defender Kate Monihan — Monihan’s first point of the season and her career.

Taking a two-goal lead into the third period, the Tigers showed no sign of letting up with junior forward Shannon Griffin scoring her first goal of the season assisted by Neunzert and junior forward Annie MacDonald. Princeton scored three more goals over the rest of the period with two from junior forward Sharon Frankel and one from Bullock short-handed. Fillier assisted on two of these goals and Neunzert assisted on one, giving Fillier a four-point game and Neunzert a three-point game. This is the highest-scoring game the Tigers have had since February 8, 2019 against Brown when they had eight goals overall. Sophomore goalie Cassie Reale also got a win with eight saves on only 10 shots.

On Saturday, Princeton jumped out to a two-goal lead by the end of the first period. Freshman forward Annie Kuehl scored her first career goal, assisted by Bullock and Neunzert, to give the Tigers the initial lead. Connors extended this lead with help from Fillier and Bullock. In the second period, Fillier scored twice, including once on the power-play. Bullock assisted on both goals, and Frankel helped with the first while Connors aided on the second. RPI scored once in the third period with less than five minutes remaining, taking away senior goalie Stephanie Neatby’s shutout. Neatby made 10 saves on 11 shots. Bullock had a four-point game to cap a six-point weekend, and Fillier’s three-point night finished off a seven-point weekend.

Princeton was able to dominate both games in terms of the number of shots because of their control at the face-off circle. The Tigers won the face-off battle 36–28 on Friday night and 35–21 on Saturday afternoon. This translated to shooting advantages of 43–10 on Friday and 59–11 on Saturday. This was certainly important to Princeton’s success this past weekend after having struggled at the face-off circle and getting shots on goal the weekend prior against Harvard and Dartmouth.

Up next, the Tigers will have their Black Out Baker game on Friday, Nov. 22 at 6 p.m. against No. 5/5 Clarkson (10—1—3 overall, 3—0—1 ECAC) where fans are encouraged to wear black and the first 500 fans will get a free Black Out Baker t-shirt. Princeton will follow this up with hosting Saint Lawrence (5–4–3, 1–1–1 ECAC) on Saturday, Nov. 23 at 3 p.m. The Tigers will then be off for Thanksgiving with an exhibition schedule on Dec. 1 and then resuming ECAC play hosting No. 3/3 Cornell on Dec. 6 at 7 p.m.