Moving forward towards its goal of reaching the NESCAC tournament, the women’s hockey team would be wise to forget the final scores of this weekend’s games against Hamilton—one tie and one loss. Rather, the team should remember the two impressive comebacks that brought both games into overtime and showed great improvement in focus and offense aggression.
“It was bittersweet,” said Adrienne Shea ’08. “[It was] exciting because we came back but frustrating to lose after all that. But we were playing a lot more positively and a lot more disciplined and that was why we were able to come back.”
Friday night’s game was scoreless until the beginning of the second period when Jessica Fischer ’08 scored of a feed from Hannah Jackson ’09. Hamilton followed suit ten minutes later, and the game entered the third period knotted at one.
Hamilton then scored a power play goal two minutes into the third. Julia Kazmers ’08 was the Cardinals’ saving grace, firing the game-tying goal with 57 seconds left in regulation play. Neither team scored in overtime, and the game ended in a 2-2 tie.
Saturday afternoon was even more exciting, with Conner Brannen ’10 initiating the two-goal comeback that lifted the game into overtime. In addition, the team played with more discipline and greater passion of offense than the previous night’s game.
“We played a lot stronger and had a lot of heart,” Jackson said. “We focused more on playing hockey and not on running around so much.”
Despite the increased effort, the Cardinals were down 4-2 by the end of the second period after Hamilton netted two goals in each of the first two frames. Danielle Bugge ’07 scored Wesleyan’s first goal of the game at 6:40; the second, assisted by Amanda Nickels ’08 and Shea. Just over five minutes later, Bugge was followed onto score sheet by Julia Cohen’s ’09 first goal of the year.
After two third-period Hamilton goals and a Cardinal tally at 12:36 from Fischer, Wesleyan trailed 6-4 late in the third. With less than two minutes left in the game, Brannen scored her first goal of the game. Hamilton took a time out but was unable to stop Brannen who scored again, this time with only two seconds until the buzzer.
Unfortunately, Wesleyan was unable to stop another goal from Hamilton during the sudden death overtime, and the game ended in a 7-6 loss for the Cardinals.
Both nights, the net was tended by Hilary Schreiber ’09, who was in goal for the first time this season.
“She is a solid goal tender,” Shea said. “She had two really good games and allowed us to contend for those overtimes.”
Wesleyan will close the semester with two non-conference games, beginning tonight at 7 p.m. against Holy Cross, a squad the Cards tied last year. The Cardinals will then challenge MIT this Saturday at 3 p.m. Both games will be played at the Spurrier-Snyder Rink.
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