The women's hockey team picked up a point against two of the top four teams in the ECAC over the weekend.
After battling to a scoreless tie with Quinnipiac on Friday night in Meehan Auditorium, Bruno fell to Princeton by a 5-0 score the following day, moving to 1-4-1 overall and 0-3-1 in ECAC play.
"It was okay," said Head Coach Digit Murphy after the Quinnipiac game. "It wasn't great, but we didn't lose, and we got a point."
Brown 0, Quinnipiac 0 (OT)
The Bears and Bobcats (5-3-2, 3-0-1) combined for 66 shots, but Brown goalie Katie Jamieson '13 and Quinnipiac netminder Victoria Vigilanti stopped them all to post dual shutouts and secure the tie.
"Our goaltending was solid, as it has been," Murphy said. "Jamieson's been playing really well."
The game opened shakily for the Bears, who took two penalties in the first four minutes — the first for having too many players on the ice — but they were able to kill off both Bobcats' power plays.
"Our kids getting mixed up on the bench, especially since they were upperclassmen, that was frustrating for me, but we did kill it," Murphy said. "Our kill has been pretty good all year."
Brown rallied to end the first period with a 13-9 advantage in shots, but Viglianti made the save of the game in the 13th minute when she fell to her back but still managed to swat the puck out of the crease.
"There were points in the game where they could have scored on us and we could have scored on them," Murphy said. "It was just frustrating because I felt like we had opportunities and we just couldn't put the puck in the net."
The Bobcats turned the tables to post a 13-6 shot advantage in the second period, but the Bears weathered the storm.
"The momentum shifted a few times, and we held the fort and then got out of it, whereas in the past we'd kind of get caught in that vortex kind of thing," Murphy said.
Bruno surged again in the third period to tally 13 shots, notching four of them during the team's only full two-minute power play of the game. But the Bears were never able to score the winning goal because they could not take advantage of chances around the crease.
Murphy said the Brown players were not "chopping down trees in front of the net. We really have to put the puck in when you're in front of the net, and I think that was something that we didn't do well tonight."
Neither team could take advantage of a pair of overtime shots. The Bobcats entered the final five minutes on a power play, but the Bears' defense shut them down.
"They're starting to play experienced D, breaking the puck out," Murphy said. "I thought the defense did a really good job today."
Jamieson posted 32 saves and Vigilanti came up with 34 as Bruno played to its first tie in ECAC play since February 2008 and its first scoreless tie since Feb. 3, 2006 against Harvard.
Murphy said she saw a lot of positives, including strong play from forwards Jenna Dancewicz '11, Laurie Jolin '13 and the line of Erin Connors '10, Kath Surbey '10 and Erica Kromm '11.
"I can't really pinpoint anything, but I know that the whole game was more ups than downs, so I'm happy with that," she said.
Princeton 5, Brown 0
Jamieson added 33 saves on Saturday, but the Tigers (4-1-1, 3-0-1) were too much for the Bears.
Princeton jumped on the board just 14 seconds into the game, and then took a two-goal lead under a minute from the first intermission on a sharp play. Tigers' goalie Cassie Seguin slapped the puck to center-ice, catching the Bears on a line change. Danielle DiCesare took the puck up the left side before centering it to Paula Romanchuk, who knocked it up and in.
Princeton scored twice more in the second frame on the strength of a 20-3 advantage in shots. Brown took four penalties in the period and surrendered a 5-on-3 goal.
The Tigers added an insurance goal in a choppy third period that featured nine penalties. Bruno tallied 10 of its 18 shots in the final period, but could not avoid being blanked for the weekend.
The Bears will travel to Albany, N.Y., this weekend to face Union (2-8-0, 0-4-0) andRPI (3-6-3, 1-2-1).
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