On Nov. 1, women’s hockey notched its seventh victory to set a program record season-opening winning streak. Since then, not much has gone right for Cornell.
The Red hadn’t lost to Union on the road in 21 years, and had won 17 straight matchups with Syracuse. In two weeks, both of those streaks were snapped, and Cornell has picked up just one regulation win in its last five games. Cornell has gone from playing like one of the best teams in the country to looking like the fourth-best team in New York State.
“I think [we have been] a little indecisive in our play, and maybe that’s due to the losses,” said head coach Doug Derraugh ’91. “I think early on we showed more decisiveness and aggressiveness in our play, and so we need to get back to trusting each other and doing our jobs… just being more decisive in our play will allow us to play with more pace and be more aggressive.”
After picking up a bounceback 4-1 win over Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on Saturday, it seemed like Cornell (9-2-1, 6-2-0 ECAC) might have solved some of its recent issues, headlined by a lack of even-strength scoring. The following Tuesday afternoon in Syracuse (6-10-2, 4-5-1 AHA), the Red dominated long stretches of the game — outshooting the Orange 50-37 — but struggled to beat a freshman netminder en route to a 2-2 tie.
“We had 50 shots on goal, so it wasn’t like we weren’t creating opportunities,” Derraugh said. “So I thought we were pretty good in that way, [but we had] a couple of defensive lapses they capitalized on.”
Despite controlling most of the opening frame, the first goal of the game came 6:39 into the second period when junior forward Karel Prefontaine rocketed a one-time shot off a cross-ice pass from senior forward Avi Adam into the back of the net. The goal was Prefontaine’s third in four games and gave her the team lead in goals with six.
Syracuse countered with a goal of its own 10 minutes later, set up by a failed Cornell clearance. Senior forward Mckenna Van Gelder put the Red in front with a power-play goal midway through the third period, but Syracuse equalized with 4:48 remaining in regulation.
After a back-and-forth scoreless overtime, the Orange took the shootout, 2-0. Cornell now falls to 17-1-1 all-time against Syracuse, the lone loss coming in the first matchup between the two teams in 2010.
MacEachern Hurt
Cornell suffered its first injury of the season in Friday’s loss to Union, with senior defender and captain Sarah MacEachern not appearing in the subsequent matchups against RPI and Syracuse. MacEachern, an IIHF Under-18 World Juniors gold medalist with Canada, played in 32 games her sophomore season but managed just 12 combined appearances in her freshman and junior years due to injury.
Freshman defender Lily Pachl, who until the injury served as the team’s extra skater, spent the Saturday and Tuesday games paired alongside senior defender and likely future Professional Women’s Hockey League draft pick Alyssa Regalado.
“I think she’s done a really good job stepping in,” Derraugh said about Pachl. “She plays a real smart game, she’s been moving the puck well.”
Scouting the Catamounts
This weekend, Cornell will travel East to take on the University of Vermont for the first time since 2015. The Catamounts spent four seasons with the Red in ECAC Hockey between 2001 and 2005, before moving to their current conference, Hockey East. Cornell owns a 12-1-1 record against Vermont, with the Red’s lone loss coming in 2005.
“Its been a few years since we’ve played them,” Derraugh said. “We wanted to get them back on the schedule since we hadn’t seen them in a while.”
After finishing second in the Hockey East standings in 2021-2022 and 2022-2023, the Catamounts struggled to a combined 22-42-7 in their past two seasons. This year, Vermont (5-9-2, 2-5-1 HE) is once again off to a rough start despite picking up an early season win against then-ranked St. Lawrence.
For Derraugh, consistency will be the key to what he described as another “tough weekend on the road.”
“Consistency in our habits, consistency in our effort, consistency in our execution,” Derraugh said. “I just want to see more consistency across the board.”
Cornell will take on Vermont Friday night at 6 p.m. and Saturday afternoon at 3 p.m. Both games will take place in Burlington, with action streaming live on ESPN+.
Eli Fastiff is a senior editor on the 143rd editorial board and a member of the class of 2026 in the College of Arts and Sciences. You can follow him on X @Eli_Fastiff and reach him at efastiff@cornellsun.com.
