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Women's ice hockey drops both weekend games

The Bears allowed eight goals in two games, four of which came in the final third of play

The women’s ice hockey team played back-to-back games at home this weekend, falling to nationally ranked Quinnipiac University and Ivy rival Princeton.

On Friday evening, Bruno (1-4-1, 0-3-1 ECAC) folded under the offensive output of powerhouse Quinnipiac (8-1-3, 3-1-2), which boasted the No. 7 ranking in the country.

Five minutes into the first period, the Bobcats opened the scoring when one of the team’s forwards flicked a puck out of the air and into the back of the net.

The Bears retaliated two minutes later, when Sarah Robson ’15 netted Bruno’s first goal with an assist from Erin Conway ’17. Goaltender Aubree Moore ’14 kept Quinnipiac off the board for the rest of the period, despite being battered with 12 shots.

The scoring drought ended two minutes into the second period, when Quinnipiac’s right wing redirected a long-distance shot past Moore. The Bobcats added an additional goal in the third period.

The game ended 3-1, though it could have been much worse without Moore, who stopped 42 of Quinnipiac’s 45 shots. Brown’s forwards were only able to muster nine attempts on the Bobcats’ goalie.

“They had a ton of shots, and (Moore) did the best she could,” said forward Janice Yang ’15. “She’s been a really solid contributor to the team all season long. We have good defenders — we just need to stay organized when other teams are threatening in our (defensive zone).”

“I think our main struggle right now, especially mine, is that we don’t shoot enough,” Conway said. “We work the puck into the corner a lot, but we don’t take it to the net. It’s a matter of carrying the puck forward and attacking the net instead of staying to the outside.”

The team did not have much time to lament the loss — the players had less than 24 hours before hitting the ice again to play Princeton (4-2-0, 4-2-0).

Bruno came out strong and struck first with a power play goal from Yang. But Princeton wasted no time in recovering from the goal, scoring on a power play of its own just 54 seconds later.

The game remained deadlocked for over 20 minutes, until the Tigers scored again on another power play late in the second half.

“We hung with them for the majority of the game,” Moore said. “Even after their second goal, we were still in the game. We just needed to keep playing all the way through the third period, and we could have easily gotten a goal back.”

Unfortunately for Bruno, the opposite happened. Princeton uncorked three unanswered goals in the third period, the last two coming within just over a minute of each other.

The Princeton forwards “played really hard — they always come in hard on us,” Moore said. “They’re a very mobile group, so it makes it difficult to track them and keep a defender watching them at all times because they’re always hovering around different spots.”

With three minutes remaining in the game —  and the lead out of reach at 5-1 — Conway managed to add a silver lining, tallying her first career goal for the Bears.

“It was awesome but bittersweet,” Conway said. “I hadn’t scored a goal yet, and my mom and friends were starting to ride me about it. I know we were losing pretty badly, and I wish my first goal had come with a win, but it was still super exciting to finally get one in college.”

One major stat line in the Princeton game was the number of penalties — a combined 11 infractions equated to 22 power play minutes in total, with seven of the whistles going against Brown.

“Princeton is a really fast team, and I think some of the penalties were caused by our players trying not to get beat and ending up tripping or shoving them,” Conway said. “They’re also a very physical team, more so than Quinnipiac. It was a different kind of game.”

After the game, Head Coach Amy Bourbeau told the team that it must compete in all three periods of each game and cannot get lazy in the third, Yang said.

The Bears will have a chance to regroup this week in practice and focus on improving their fitness before playing another double-header next weekend, when they travel to Union College and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

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