No. 8 Dartmouth to Face No. 1 Clarkson in ECAC Hockey Quarterfinal

ECAC Hockey Quarterfinals
Best-of-Three Series
No. 8 Seed Dartmouth (13-13-2, 9-11-2 ECAC Hockey) at No. 1 Seed Clarkson (16-4-2, 22-9-3 ECAC Hockey)
Friday, Feb. 27 – 7 p.m.
Saturday, Feb. 28 – 4 p.m.
Sunday, March 1 – 4 p.m.
Potsdam, N.Y. – Cheel Arena

DEJA VU
For the second year in a row, the Dartmouth women's hockey team will face Clarkson in the Quarterfinal of the ECAC Hockey Tournament at Cheel Arena. Like last year, the eighth-seeded Big Green will take on the Golden Knights, who are the top seed in the tournament. This will also be the second time in a week that the two teams have faced each other.

LAST TIME OUT
Although Dartmouth went 0-2 in its final homestand of the season, the team played aggressively against both of its tough opponents. In the Big Green's 2-1 overtime loss to No. 8 Clarkson on Friday, Kennedy Ottenbreit gave the home team a 1-0 lead at 13:11 in the first, an edge that would last until 14:11 in the third, when Savannah Harmon evened the score and sent the game to overtime. At 3:51, Genevieve Bannon took advantage of Robyn Chemago skating to the right to save a previous shot and pocketed the puck in the left corner of the net to end the game. On Saturday against St. Lawrence, after entering the third period trailing, 4-2, and scoring twice to tie things at four, Dartmouth ultimately fell to the Saints, 6-4, on Senior Day. After Lindsey Allen's goal tying the score with just eight minutes to go in the game, St. Lawrence went on to score two unanswered goals to end the game. Gianna Guarino made her career debut between the pipes, spending 24 minutes in net and making seven saves while allowing three goals.

SCOUTING THE GOLDEN KNIGHTS (AGAIN)
Everything came down to the last game of the regular season between Clarkson and Harvard on Saturday. A first-period goal by Brielle Bellerive was all Clarkson needed to defeat Harvard by a score of 1-0. Although the Golden Knights wrapped up conference games tied with the Crimson for first place with 34 points apiece, Clarkson retained its ECAC Hockey regular season title by virtue of its 1-0-1 record against Harvard this season. Leading the team is Cayley Mercer with her 20 goals and 18 assists for 38 points.

THIS TIME LAST YEAR
Game One
The Big Green opened postseason play with a 2-0 loss against the Golden Knights on Feb. 28, 2014 in the ECAC Hockey Quarterfinal. The No. 8 seed Dartmouth surrendered a pair of power-play goals as top-seeded Clarkson took a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three series. The home team's Jamie Lee Rattray netted both of Clarkson's tallies, first striking nine minutes into the first and then scoring 46 seconds into the final period.

Game Two
Dartmouth was eliminated from the ECAC Hockey Tournament Quarterfinal on March 1, 2014, with another 2-0 loss to Clarkson. The top-seeded Golden Knights swept the series, 2-0, versus the eighth-seeded Big Green advance to and host the upcoming semifinal. Clarkson opened scoring with just over one minute remaining in the first period to take a lead heading into the intermission and Christine Lambert added one more at 11:07 in the second. Since advancing to the conference championship game in 2011, the Green and White have been bounced from the ECAC Hockey Tournament in the first round the last three seasons.

ECAC HOCKEY FINAL STANDINGS
After Saturday's games were completed, the eight teams who would continue to play in the post season were announced. The eight teams, in order of seed, are Clarkson, Harvard, Quinnipiac, Cornell, St. Lawrence, Princeton, Yale and Dartmouth. The 31st annual championship will commence with quarterfinal competition Friday, February 27 at on-campus facilities. The quarterfinal winners will advance to the championship semifinal and final, which will be conducted the weekend of March 6-8.

TOURNAMENT SCHEDULE
No. 8 DARTMOUTH at No. 1 CLARKSON
Friday: 7 p.m.
Saturday: 4 p.m.
Sunday: 4 p.m. (if necessary)

No. 7 YALE at No. 2 HARVARD
Friday: 3:30 p.m.
Saturday: 3 p.m.
Sunday: 3 p.m. (if necessary)

No. 6 PRINCETON at No. 3 QUINNIPIAC
Friday: 3:30 p.m.
Saturday: 3 p.m.
Sunday: 1 p.m. (if necessary)

No. 5 ST. LAWRENCE at No. 4 CORNELL
Friday: 7 p.m.
Saturday: 4 p.m.
Sunday: 4 p.m. (if necessary)

SEMIFINALS
March 6 or 7

CHAMPIONSHIP
March 7 or 8

HUDAK & CO.
Having been with the Big Green women's hockey team since the 2003-04 season, Mark Hudak has compiled a record of 218-123-30 as he continues through his 12th season. His accomplishments with the team include two Ivy League titles, two ECAC Tournament titles, one ECAC regular-season title, six NCAA Tournament appearances and two Frozen Four showings. On the bench, Hudak is joined by associate head coach Holley Tyng, who is in her 10th season with the team, and assistant coach Josh Liegl, who returns to the Big Green coaching staff for his third year.

CAPTAINS
The Green and White are led by captain Karlee Odland, and alternate captains Morgan Illikainen and Catherine Berghuis. This is the first time since the 2010-11 season that just one player is wearing the 'C'. So far in the 2014-15 season, Odland leads with 10 goals and 10 assists, after scoring Dartmouth's first goal against St. Lawrence just 20 seconds into the first period and then adding an assist on the Green's third marker. Illikainen has netted four goals and seven assists and Berghuis has three goals and seven helpers of her own, finding the back of the net with 38 ticks left in the second period of the St. Lawrence game.

LEADING THE WAY
There is, once again, a three-way tie for first on the team with 26 points between Lindsey Allen, Kennedy Ottenbreit and Laura Stacey. Allen has 19 goals and seven assists, Ottenbreit has netted 13 markers and 13 helpers and Stacey has scored nine goals and has tallied 17 assists. Allen is third in the conference in goals, sitting just one behind Mercer from Clarkson and Emily Fulton of Cornell, who are tied for first with 20. Allen and Stacey were named All-Ivy Honorable Mentions for their performances this season.

FRESH FACES
Four freshmen were added to the roster at the start of the season. The talented group consists of forwards Brooke Ahbe, Elena Horton and Morgan Turner, and defenseman Hailey Noronha. Ahbe was selected to the United States U18 National team that won silver at the U18 World Championships in Hungary this past year, while Noronha was a two-time member of the Canada U18 National Team that won gold in Budapest in March. Horton and Turner's teams have both played at the USA National Championships. Since first donning the Green and White uniform in October, Turner has netted one goal, Horton has tallied one assist and Noronha has four helpers. Ahbe leads the group with four goals and two assists for six points.

AND IN NET…
Chemago stopped 65 shots throughout the two games, making 40 saves against Clarkson on Friday and 25 in just under 35 minutes against St. Lawrence. In her career debut in net, Guarino stopped seven shots in 24 minutes between the pipes. Throughout the season, Chemago has stopped 817-of-898 shots, has a .910 save percentage and a 2.56 goals against average.

Schedules