The women's ice hockey team lost its 11th and 12th consecutive games this weekend. The Bears took two heavy punches on the road, falling 8-0 to conference leader No. 2 Cornell before dropping a 4-1 decision to Colgate.
Cornell 8, Brown 0
Friday's game was a classic mismatch, as Brown (2-21-3, 1-15-3 ECAC), winless in its last 20 attempts, went up against a dominant Cornell squad (25-1-1, 19-0-1), unbeaten in its last 22 games. It did not take long for the Big Red to show why they are head-and-shoulders above the rest of the conference.
Just 40 seconds after the puck dropped, Cornell forward Rebecca Johnston beat goaltender Aubree Moore '14 on a breakaway. Brianne Jenner registered an assist on the goal.
Johnston and Jenner then teamed up on the next two goals, scoring and assisting on one each to put Cornell up 3-0 after the first period.
Jenner completed her hat trick in the second period. Forwards Catherine White and Kendice Ogilvie piled it on with two more goals, increasing Cornell's lead to an almost-insurmountable 7-0 advantage in the second period. Forward Hayley Hughes scored in the dying moments of the game to notch an eighth goal for the Big Red.
Brown had as many shots in the game as Cornell had goals.
"Cornell has a lot of national team players," said tri-captain Erica Kromm '11. "Our aim was to try and shut them down, to play our game and really get our offense going. We did get a few opportunities, but there weren't really too many quality shots."
Referring to Moore, who had 40 saves on the night, Kromm said, "Aubree played really well, but you can only save so many shots."
Colgate 4, Brown 1
Brown had to bounce back quickly to prepare for Saturday's matchup against Colgate (11-17-3, 8-10-2) at Starr Rink. But Brown's pattern of weak first-period performances continued as Colgate went up 1-0 seven minutes into the first period after forward Brittany Phillips took advantage of a power play. The Raiders then managed to make the most of a penalty kill, scoring a short-handed goal in the final minute of the first period to go up by two goals.
Colgate added another to its tally midway through the second period. Phillips beat goalie Katie Jamieson '13 for the second time on the night. Brown responded with a goal by Alena Polenska '13 early in the third frame to ignite brief hopes of a comeback. But Colgate scored four minutes later to effectively shut Brown out of the game.
"We match up pretty well against them typically, but they scored two pretty quick," Kromm said. "We have to learn to start the games off a lot harder — the third period is typically our best. If we played our first the way we play our third periods, we'd win a lot more of the close games, and our big 7-0, 8-0 losses wouldn't be anywhere near as big."
Kromm also said she was hopeful her team would end the season on a good note.
"The next three teams we play, we beat them preseason," she said. "Honestly, the teams aren't that much different. It's just a matter of confidence — against Yale last time, we were all over them the second period, but we gave them three quick goals in the first and that pretty much killed the game."
The Bears play Yale (7-16-3, 6-11-2) away on Tuesday, before finishing off their regular season with home games against Princeton (14-12-1, 11-8-1) and Quinnipiac University (20-10-2, 12-8-0) next weekend.
