Women Face Ivies

After a split in Central NY last weekend, Clarkson's Women's Hockey Team heads to New England to face Brown and Yale, in hopes of getting closer to locking up a home playoff series while keeping their eyes on the top of the ECACHL. With four games to go, Clarkson sits in 3rd Place, with 22 points and only six points separates first through fifth, meaning nothing is certain with two weeks to go. Clarkson with a sweep and a lot of help could get something nailed down this weekend, but with the parity in the top half of the conference this year, anything goes.

On Friday, Clarkson will face the Yale Bulldogs, who with a victory over Brown on Tuesday climbed back to the .500 mark for the first time since November. Despite the .500 record, Yale is a very dangerous team that can play at a top level on any given day. The Bulldogs enter this weekend without losing in the past month, pounding the bottom of the conference, but also taking wins from Brown and Dartmouth and tying Colgate and Harvard along the way. Yale features a balanced sheet with forwards Deena Caplette, Crysti Howser, and Kristin Savard all above the twenty point mark this season, and seven players total in double digits. The Knights we'll likely see senior Sarah Love in net for Yale, who has had a strong senior year, with a 2.21 GAA and a .925 save pct. In their last meeting the Knights took a hard fought 1-0 victory at Cheel Arena.

Saturday, the Knights head to Providence, where they'll face a Brown team that despite a serious lack of scoring (36 goals) have managed to hang in at the top of the ECACHL, sitting just behind Clarkson in 4th place with 21 points. In January, while holding the Bears to six shots, the Knights fell 1-0 at Cheel in January. The Bears are 6-1 in one goal games this season. Brown is lead by sophomore forward Hayley Moore who has 29 points (16 goals, 13 assists) and Keaton Zucker with 21 (10 goals and 11 assists.) No other player on the Brown roster has more than 10 points. Recently, net time has been split between sophomore O'Hara Shipe (1.95 GAA, .932 Save Pct.) and freshman Nicole Stock (1.84 GAA, .927 Save Pct.) We suspect the goalie perfomance on Friday against St. Lawrence will dictate who we see on Saturday, but we'll look for Shipe who currently ranks sixth in the country in Save Pct. to be between the pipes.

Entering this weekend, Clarkson has nine players in double digit scoring with junior Ashley Shaidle leading the way with 26 points. Kira Hurley continues to shine in goal with a GAA of 1.14 good for third in the country, and tops among full-time goalies. She ranks fourth in save percentage (0.938), minutes played and is tops in the country in shutouts with nine. Clarkson has the best penalty kill in the country, and is the least penalized team in Division I. Clarkson is 15-2-0 when they score first.

Ron's Picks:
Clarkson 1 - Yale 0
Clarkson 2 - Brown 0

Brett's Picks:
Clarkson 3 - Yale 1
Clarkson 1 - Brown 1

One last thought, be sure to get over to PattyKaz.com and get in your write-in vote for Kira Hurley, as well as the other players you think are worthy of the highest award in women's college hockey!