Women’s hockey hadn’t had an undefeated week since sweeping Yale and Brown on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1. This weekend, the Red broke that streak, with a tie against Clarkson on Friday and a rout of St. Lawrence on Saturday to begin the second half of the conference play with a bang.
The Saints (7-14-2, 4-7-0 ECAC) put up a fight, matching the Red shot-for-shot for the first period and mounting late attacks to keep the game close. However, Cornell (11-6-2, 7-4-1 ECAC) leapt out ahead early and held onto its lead for 56 minutes, despite an almost-overlooked goal in the second period, to earn a 5-2 win over St. Lawrence.
“It feels good. I think we got out of our way before December break, but we're going back to ourselves and our identity and our team identity,” said junior forward Karel Prefontaine. “We’ve just got to stick with it and keep showing up every day.”
Senior defender Sarah MacEachern got the scoring started exactly four minutes after the opening puck drop. MacEachern received a pass from junior forward Delaney Fleming, shooting past a screen by senior forward Mckenna Van Gelder to put the Red on the board.
Five minutes later, junior defender Piper Grober fired a shot off the faceoff, which bounced off the pads of St. Lawrence goaltender Emma-Sofie Nordström and onto the waiting stick of freshman forward Shannon Pearson. Pearson buried the puck to double the Red’s lead.
Cornell hadn’t had a multi-goal first period since its 4-3 loss to University of Vermont on Nov. 28. This production came from less common goal-scorers — it was Pearson’s second goal of the season, MacEachern’s third. MacEachern returned to the ice against Penn State on Dec. 30 after injury sidelined her for over a month of play.
Despite the uneven score, the Saints had rallied nine shots on goal to Cornell’s 11 and won 11 of 24 faceoffs over the first twenty minutes.
“I think the difference was the quality of chances that we gave up,” said head coach Doug Derraugh ’91. “The other night we gave Clarkson rebound opportunities, back door opportunities. The chances that we gave up tonight, the goalie could see it.”
St. Lawrence began the second period with the extra skater from a penalty carried across the intermission, but the Red killed off the opportunity, an improvement from struggling to shut down Clarkson’s power play the night before.
Before the period clock ran out halfway, senior forward Georgia Schiff received a penalty that would put the Red back on the disadvantage. Cornell’s bench challenged the call, pointing to contact St. Lawrence’s Kiley Mastel had made with the front of Schiff’s helmet prior to her fall. After review, officials called a major penalty on Mastel in addition to Schiff's shift in the box.
The Red began the two-minute four-on-four in domination of the puck, launching an unsuccessful attack on the Saint’s net. After Schiff’s release, Cornell had just under a minute of power-play time before another play went under review, this time for a potential goal for the Red.
Prefontaine had nudged the puck after a scramble by the net, 12 seconds before the stoppage of time, and another look at video footage showed that the puck had ricocheted into and out of the goal.
“I had to crash in the net, obviously, because you have to do that if you're gonna score a goal,” Prefontaine said. “Once I saw it go in, I was just yelling at the ref[eree], and nothing happened. So when the whistle blew, I told my coach, and Avi Adam was saying the same thing as me. We challenged it, and we got it.”
The Red still had over two minutes left on Mastel’s major penalty after extending its lead to 3-0, but couldn’t maintain its previous pressure. A Cornell turnover in the offensive zone allowed a pass ahead to a lone St. Lawrence forward, who lifted a shot past a defender-less Bergmann. The shorthanded goal put the Saints on the board.
“The rebound came out. They got it, and they stretched somebody out,” Derraugh said. “We were maybe a little late picking her up. She picked her corner, and it was a nice goal on her part. It was a really good shot.”
St. Lawrence struck again less than two minutes into the final frame, with a shot from the faceoff circle slipping past Bergmann to cut the Red’s lead to 3-2.
It didn’t last long. Not 30 seconds later, the Red catapulted back into a two-goal lead. Prefontaine slung a far shot into the net for her second consecutive goal.
“You’ve just got to let it go and just move on,” Prefontaine said. “And then good things happen when you do that. It just shifted the momentum back to our team.”
With a minute left on the clock, St. Lawrence received a power play and a chance to get one back before final time. However, the Saints’ decision to pull the goaltender for the two-skater advantage proved to be fruitless. Grober shot from the neutral zone on the empty net to secure the 5-2 final score.
The Red heads on the road next week to take on Yale and Brown, its most recent weekend sweep. Cornell kicks off in Providence at 6 p.m. on Jan. 16 before heading to New Haven the next day. Both games will be streamed on ESPN+.
“In the ECAC, there [are] upsets pretty much every weekend,” Derraugh said. “I think there’s going to be a lot of fluctuation in positioning throughout the second half, and it’s really going to come down to who can be the most consistent at playoff time. You’ve got to be prepared for every single game, and your players do too, but it makes us all better, and it makes it interesting and fun.”
Alexis Rogers is the sports editor on the 143rd editorial board. She is in the Class of 2028 in the College of Arts & Sciences, and she can be reached at arogers@cornellsun.com.
