HANOVER, N.H. – Five members of the Dartmouth women's hockey team had a point in the 5-2 loss to Princeton at Thompson Arena on Saturday afternoon.
Junior
Sydney Hill and sophomore
Katerina Dajia found the back of the net, while freshman
Sara McClanahan assisted on the first marker, and sophomores
Linda Essery and
Megan Cornell assisted on the second. Senior
Christine Honor's 51 stops is her second highest after her NCAA record-breaking 61-save performance against Quinnipiac last season.
"I thought we battled hard against a really good team," head coach
Laura Schuler said. "I thought our defensive zone was better today, consistently better than it was yesterday. When playing against good teams, we need to be committed to getting the puck behind their defense more consistently in order to establish forecheck and create offense from there. We didn't do a good job with that today and it's something that we're going to have to work on.
"I thought our overall effort when we did get pucks was better," Schuler continued. "We had two really nice goals by getting people in front of their goalie and taking away her eyes. We have to continue to play gritty like that."
In a pretty even first period, it looked as if Princeton had taken the lead at 8:25, but the goal was waved off due to goalie interference and the teams played out the remaining nine minutes scoreless. This was just the fourth time in 18 games that the Tigers have been kept out of the net in the first.
After such a quiet opening period, the second was quite the opposite, as four goals were scored in less than 10 minutes. Princeton netted the first three, while Hill's first of the season and third of her career at 13:00 got Dartmouth within two (3-1). With five seconds remaining on the power play, Hill's shot from the blue line sailed through the air and right past Cassie Reale's extended glove.
The Tigers got another on the board at 7:28 of the third, but the Green responded less than two minutes later. At 9:23, Dajia got the puck through traffic for her first collegiate marker. Princeton scored two empty netters at the end of the game, though the second did not count as time had expired.
Dartmouth will play just one game next weekend, hosting Harvard at 6 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 11.