Box Score NEW HAVEN, Conn. – The Yale women's ice hockey team nabbed two crucial points in the ECAC Hockey standings in dramatic fashion Friday night at Thompson Arena, beating Dartmouth 4-3 in overtime on a goal by senior forward Jamie Haddad. The goal capped a memorable back-and-forth game in which Yale took the lead twice only to see Dartmouth rally both times to force the extra session. The win was Yale's fifth in a row, and allows the Bulldogs to keep pace with St. Lawrence in a tie for sixth in the conference standings.
Sophomore forward Eden Murray got the game-winning sequence going with some tenacious fore-checking behind the Dartmouth goal. That freed the puck up for junior forward Krista Yip-Chuck, who fed a wide-open Haddad in between the circles for the game-winner at 1:43 of OT.
"We created a turnover, got a great pass from Krista, then Jamie did a great job to corral the puck and get off a good shot," said Joakim Flygh, Yale's Susan Cavanagh Head Coach of Women's Ice Hockey.
The final score belied a game in which Dartmouth held a 32-19 shot advantage and went 3-for-5 on the power play. Junior goaltender Hanna Mandl's 29 saves were a big part of the win.
"Dartmouth outplayed us for some stretches," said Flygh. "We've got to a better job blocking shots, and we have to play tougher in front of the net to eliminate those rebound chances. But give our kids credit for finding a way to win."
It took the Bulldogs nearly six minutes to get their first shot on goal, but after they did they quickly hit paydirt. Fore-checking by junior forward Phoebe Staenz led to a turnover in Dartmouth's zone, and Staenz then fed senior forward Hanna Åström for a shot. Dartmouth goalie Robyn Chemago was able to get her leg out to stop that one, but Åström followed up while falling to the ice and poked the rebound home for a 1-0 lead at 5:52.
Dartmouth evened the game with a power play goal at 12:06. Mandl went down after making a save on a shot by forward Ailish Forfar, and the rebound popped loose just past her head. With several Big Green players chipping away at it, Mandl tried to get her glove on the puck but could not keep it away from defenseman Hailey Noronha. Noronha pushed it over the goal line to knot the score 1-1.
The Bulldogs struck again just before the first intermission. Yip-Chuck took the puck away from a Dartmouth player along the boards in the neutral zone, then skated in with sophomore defenseman Mallory Souliotis for a 2-on-1. With a Dartmouth player diving to the ice to try to block the pass, Yip-Chuck still managed to get it through to Souliotis, who jammed it home for her fourth goal of the season. That put Yale up 2-1 with just 18.3 left on the clock.
Yale (10-13-1, 9-7-1 ECAC Hockey) extended the lead to 3-1 at 2:09 of the second. After Chemago poked the puck away from Staenz right in front of the net, senior forward Janelle Ferrara grabbed it and backhanded it under the crossbar for her team-leading 11th goal of the season.
"That was some great patience by Janelle, waiting out the goalie," said Flygh. "She's really worked hard on her shot, put in some extra time, and its nice to see that paying off."
Dartmouth (4-16-3, 4-10-3 ECAC Hockey) answered less than three minutes later as defenseman Eleni Tebano's slap shot pinged in off the crossbar to draw the Big Green within 3-2. Two minutes later, though, Mandl made one of her best saves of the night in kicking away an attempt by forward Laura Stacey on a 2-on-1. Yale kept its lead at 3-2 heading into the third thanks to some nice penalty killing at the end of the second, including a diving block by Yip-Chuck to deny the Big Green's final shot.
Mandl opened the third by reacting quickly to deny a backhand rebound attempt by forward Lindsey Allen 30 seconds in, helping kill off the remainder of that penalty. But just a minute later, after another penalty on the Bulldogs, Dartmouth knotted the score as Forfar wristed one high past Mandl's right shoulder at 1:35.
A series of penalties gave Yale a 4-on-3 for 70 seconds midway through the third. Right after that ended Allen came out of the penalty box, gathered in the puck in the neutral zone and came in on Mandl only to be turned aside by a kick save.
Dartmouth had the best final chances at the end of regulation, but Forfar sent one over the crossbar with 45 seconds left and Stacey sent one wide with 15 seconds remaining. That enabled Haddad's overtime heroics to give Yale the victory.
The win also moves Yale within one point of fifth-place Harvard in the standings. The Bulldogs visit the Crimson Saturday at 4:00 p.m.
Report by Sam Rubin '95, Yale Sports Publicity
