NEW HAVEN, Conn. – With the rest of ECAC Hockey off for the night, the Yale women's ice hockey team took advantage of the chance to earn two points in the standings and move into eighth place Tuesday night at Ingalls Rink. Freshman forward Jordan Chancellor and junior defenseman Taylor Marchin scored for Yale, and junior goaltender Hanna Mandl made 17 saves, as the Bulldogs beat Rensselaer 2-1.  

The game was re-scheduled from Saturday after a winter storm blanketed the Northeast. Yale (7-13-1, 6-7-1 ECAC Hockey), coming off a 2-1 win vs. Union from Friday, came out firing. Rensselaer netminder Lovisa Selander was on her game early, denying a pair of point-blank shots by senior forward Jamie Haddad two minutes in. But the Bulldogs kept the pressure on en route to a dominant 13-2 shot advantage in the first, and it eventually paid off when Marchin sent one past Selander at 6:18. Junior forward Krista Yip-Chuck, who won an offensive zone faceoff back to Marchin for her slap shot, picked up the assist.

"I really liked our first period," said Joakim Flygh, Yale's Susan Cavanagh Head Coach of Women's Ice Hockey. "That was one of our best periods of the year. It was good for Taylor to score-- she recognized that she had a lane to the net and she took advantage of it, and hopefully this will lead to even more goals for her the rest of the way. Plus, it's her birthday today."

Rensselaer (8-12-4, 6-6-2 ECAC Hockey) bounced back to even up shots 11-11 in the second, but the Engineers could not even the score. Three minutes in Mandl made a great kick save, and eight minutes in a shot by forward Laura Horwood hit the pipe. Chancellor then stole away any RPI momentum by stealing the puck at the Yale blue line, using her speed to get past a pair of defenders while driving on the left wing, and sniping a shot past Selander's right shoulder at 8:23 to put the Bulldogs up 2-0.

"That was a great effort by Jordan," said Flygh. "She used her speed really well, and beat the defense."

Five penalties in the final 10 minutes of the second -- three on Yale and two on Rensselaer -- left most of the rest of the frame to be decided by special teams, and the Bulldogs kept the Engineers from getting any closer. Yale took a 2-0 lead into the third.

Rensselaer cut its deficit in half at 9:44 of the third when a slap shot by defenseman Hannah Behounek eluded Mandl into the top corner. Mandl bounced back with a nice glove save on a redirection from right in front by Makenna Thomas with eight minutes left, keeping the one-goal lead intact.

A body-checking penalty on Yale with 2:54 made the game's final minutes even more intense. Rensselaer called timeout before going on the man advantage. But Horwood sent a shot wide, and Mandl made a save on a wrister by forward Alexa Gruschow. RPI pulled Selander with 1:22 to play, but the Bulldogs were able to keep the Engineers from setting up for any more good chances. Sophomore forward Courtney Pensavalle broke up a play at the Yale blue line with 10 seconds left to help seal the win. Selander finished with 33 saves as Yale enjoyed a 35-18 shot advantage.

With two points, Yale leapfrogs Cornell in the standings and moves into eighth place, just one point behind seventh-place RPI. The top eight teams in the final standings make the ECAC Hockey tournament.

Yale hosts Brown on Friday at 3:00 p.m. as part of a doubleheader with the Yale men's team, which hosts Union at 7:00 p.m.

Report by Sam Rubin '95 (sam.rubin@yale.edu), Yale Sports Publicity