Showing posts with label jordan smelker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jordan smelker. Show all posts

Monday, November 15, 2010

Women's Hockey - at Yale & Brown (12/13 Nov)

RPI continued its foray into the ECAC schedule with another weekend on the road at Yale and Brown. Yale, expected by all to be the tougher opponent on the weekend, fell 4-1 to RPI in front of a record crowd of 1,066, however the Engineers faltered against the Bears the following night, being shutout 1-0 despite compiling a significant advantage in shots on goal and overall play.

Yale

Smelker/Harrison/Horton
Sanders/Dunlop/Vandegrift
Padmore/O’Keefe/Jakubowski
Guillemette/Stapleton/Mankey

Le Donne/Vadner
Castignetti/Marzario
Daniels/Letuligasenoa

Van der Bliek

Ingalls Rink saw a record crowd of 1,066 Friday night at the Bulldogs hosted “White-Out for Mandi”, a fundraising effort for Yale center Mandi Schwartz who is battling leukemia. The event raised over $9,000, including a $1,000 donation from RPI made possible in part by fan donations at last weekend’s home games at Houston Field House.

Unfortunately for the large home crowd, it was RPI who came out the victor on the ice, thanks in no small part to freshman Jordan Smelker’s hat trick in the second and third periods. Smelker struck first on the power play early in the second period, just nine seconds into a penalty on Yale’s Samantha MacLean, redirecting a shot by Andie Le Donne to give RPI a 1-0 lead. Smelker struck again near the midpoint of the period during a long 5-on-3 power play opportunity, taking a pass from Taylor Horton and putting it home to make it 2-0.

A little over four minutes later, Sydney O’Keefe extended the Engineer lead to 3-0 when a missed Yale pass gave the Engineers an opportunity to carry the puck down the ice for the score. The teams hit the lockers after two periods with RPI strong in play and dominant on the scoreboard, racking up a 23-15 advantage in shots on goal through two.

Smelker completed her hat trick just 25 seconds into the final period with assists going to Alisa Harrison and Taylor Horton. Yale would avoid the shutout with a goal from Aleca Hughes at 5:07, but that would be the only goal from the Bulldogs, who were handily outshot by a 17-5 margin in the final frame en route to a final score of 4-1.

Brown

Smelker/Harrison/Horton
Sanders/Dunlop/Vandegrift
Padmore/O’Keefe/Jakubowski
Guillemette/Stapleton/Mankey

Le Donne/Vadner
Castignetti/Marzario
Daniels/Letuligasenoa

Van der Bliek

If anyone had suggested Friday afternoon that Brown would come out with the most points on the weekend, they probably would have been considered crazy. But the Bears did just that with a shocking victory over the Engineers the day after tying Union, making it a 3-point weekend for the team from Providence.

In a fast-paced game which was played in just 1:50 and only had three penalties called, the Engineers piled shot after shot on Brown netminder Katie Jamieson, who turned away all 37 she faced. Sonja van der Bliek saw much less rubber, facing only 11 shots on goal, but it was the last one which did the trick. Just 10 seconds after a Brown power play ended, freshman Jessica Hoyle intercepted an RPI pass in the Engineers’ zone, made a move to beat van der Bliek, and put the puck in the back of the net for a 1-0 lead. It was one of just two Brown shots in the third period.

Despite a furious comeback attempt by the Engineers, who pulled van der Bliek in favor of the extra attacker in the final minute, Jamieson held firm and kept the Engineers off the board to pick up the Bears second win on the season (and first in ECAC play). It was a disappointing conclusion to the weekend for the Engineers, who miss out on two points that much of the league will likely pick up while playing Brown, but Friday’s solid win remains as a reminder that the Engineers can still make some noise this weekend. Perhaps more importantly, it reinforced the fact that Jordan Smelker is poised to become one of the top rookies in the league. She is now 17th in the nation for point scoring, leads the ECAC in power play goals with three, and is tied for third in the league in freshman scoring with five points in ECAC play.

The Engineers return home next weekend for a pair of nonconference games against the Purple Eagles from Niagara. Friday evening’s game (7pm) will be carried on WRPI, while it’s not clear yet whether Saturday’s game (2pm) will be on the air as WRPI will be covering football in the ECAC Northwest Bowl at St. John Fisher at noon. As usual, both games will also have video broadcast on B2/America One, and Without a Peer will have live tweets at http://www.twitter.com/without_a_peer.

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RPI vs. Yale
ECAC Hockey Game – Ingalls Rink (New Haven, CT)
11/12/10 – 7:00pm
RPI 4, Yale 1

BOX SCORES:
RECAPS:
RECORD: 4-6-2 (3-2-0 ECAC)

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RPI vs. Brown
ECAC Hockey Game – Meehan Auditorium (Providence, RI)
11/13/10 – 4:00pm
Brown 1, RPI 0

BOX SCORES:
RECAPS:
RECORD: 4-7-2 (3-3-0 ECAC)

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ECAC Standings
            Points     ECAC     All
Dartmouth       10     5-1      5-1
Cornell          8     4-0      6-1
Princeton        7     3-3-1    3-5-1
Harvard          6     2-2-2    2-2-2
Rensselaer       6     3-3      4-7-2
Quinnipiac       6     3-4      8-5-1
Clarkson         4     2-0      4-7-1
Brown            3     1-2-1    2-3-1
Yale             3     1-2-1    1-5-2
St. Lawrence     2     1-1      4-5-2
Colgate          2     1-3      4-8
Union            1     0-5-1    1-10-1
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Upcoming Games

Nov. 19 – Niagara (7pm)
Nov. 20 – Niagara (2pm)
Nov. 26 – at Syracuse (7pm)
Nov. 27 – at Syracuse (2pm)
Dec. 3 – at Union (7pm)
Dec. 4 – Union (4pm)

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WOMEN’S HOCKEY

The Engineers went 1-1-0 last week, defeating Yale (4-1) before falling at Brown (1-0) the following day. Rookie Jordan Smelker (Anchorage, AK) recorded her first career hat-trick against the Bulldogs, including the eventual game-winning goal in the second period.

Rensselaer (4-7-2; 3-3-0 ECACH) returns to the ice this weekend, hosting Niagara for a pair of non-conference games at the Houston Field House. The Engineers take on the Purple Eagles on Friday (7pm) and Saturday (2pm). Friday’s game can be followed live courtesy of WRPI radio on 91.5 FM WRPI or log on to www.wrpi.org.

Live stats will also be available at http://www.rpiathletics.com/livestats and will feature a live pay-per-view webcast at http://www.rpiathletics.com/webcasts.

Posted by Gary Russinko at 7:17 PM 0 comments
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Sunday, September 26, 2010

Women's Hockey - Montreal (25 Sep)

RPI opened its season in fine fashion this afternoon, rolling to an 8-3 exhibition win over the University of Montreal after getting off to a slow start. Junior forward Jill Vandegrift notched a hat-trick and an assist in the win, the freshmen played a solid first game, and Shannon Ramelot played relatively well in net for the Engineers.

By the middle of the first period, the Engineers found themselves in a 2-0 hole as Montreal capitalized on two bad turnovers in quick succession at 11:57 and 12:34 of the frame. It became clear early that Montreal hoped to win the game by capitalizing on RPI mistakes, as they didn’t quite have the talent needed to win any other way. Unfortunately for Montreal, the mistakes decreased rapidly as the Engineers found their feet, and once the Engineer train started rolling, there was no stopping it.

A little more than two minutes after Montreal’s second goal, Jill Vandegrift scored her first of the night as she put home a Toni Sanders rebound to narrow the margin to 2-1 at 14:15. Freshman Jordan Smelker made an impact starting in the first period, covering more ice than most other players from either team, and tenaciously going after the puck and winning battles. She was noticeable throughout the entire game, and showed none of the tentative tendencies freshmen frequently do.

While the teams headed to the locker room with Montreal holding a 2-1 lead, it took fewer than three minutes to see a goal in the second period. With Jill Vandegrift off the ice for a cross-checking penalty, Montreal’s Annie-Claude Dumans roofed a beautiful backhand shot past Shannon Ramelot to give Montreal a 3-1 lead. It looked like Montreal would give the Engineers more of a challenge then they bargained for, but things quickly fell apart for the Carabins. Just two minutes after Dumans’ goal, Andie Le Donne lobbed an innocuous shot in from the blue line, and it lofted over Montreal goalie Rachel Ouellette’s glove to bring RPI back within one. RPI’s special teams took over for the rest of the second period, controlling play for most of the frame despite several Engineer penalties during that time.

On RPI’s first power play opportunity, granted after a Montreal player went a tad overboard with the pushing and shoving in front of the net, Katie Daniels scooped up a rebound which was fired off the post, and pushed it past Ouellette to tie the score at three. Later, with Le Donne in the box for body checking, the Engineers channeled Ben Barr and notched a pair of shorthanded goals on the same penalty. Smelker made it 4-3 after skating circles around a pair of Montreal defenders and burying one past Ouellette. A minute and a quarter later, Sydney O’Keefe fired a rocket of a shot which was tipped in front of the net by Jill Vandegrift for her second of the game, increasing RPI’s lead to 5-3.

The third period was nearly all RPI just as the second was. Montreal looked for a spark in the third with a goaltending change between periods, but Taylor Horton quickly squashed those hopes by scoring on the first shot of the period, just 17 seconds in, making it 6-3. Vandegrift completed the hat-trick just past the midway of the period as she and Smelker broke in alone on goalie Joanie Grand-Maison. Smelker fed a perfect pass to Vandegrift who had an empty net to shoot at with Montreal’s netminder sprawled out across the ice. Sanders finished the scoring for RPI with a little over two minutes remaining as she poked home her own rebound which Grand-Maison failed to cover.

As mentioned above, the game was a fantastic one for RPI’s new freshmen. While Montreal may not have been the most talented team, the freshmen stumbled for a few minutes early in the game but once they got their game going, they played strong, smart hockey throughout the rest of the match. Smelker was probably the best of the freshmen overall, but Madison Marzario was solid on defense, making several smart defensive plays and hassling Montreal forwards throughout the game. Nona Letuligasenoa, listed at defense, played forward but did so with a defensive mindset and made several good defensive plays of her own. Missy Mankey finished the game with a -2 rating and had the most trouble of the freshmen on the ice, getting beaten several times early on, but her game solidified as time went on as well.

The obvious player of the game was Jill Vandegrift with her 4-point effort, setting the tone for the team and stepping up to provide some of that scoring we knew the upperclassmen would need to come up with. With three goals on five shots, her shots were laser-guided and she was tough for the Montreal players to contain.

Next week, the real season starts as RPI hits the road for Madison, Wisconsin for a pair of games against Wisconsin. One of the perennial powers in women’s hockey, the Badgers should give us a much better idea of what to expect from this Engineer squad, as they’re more of a known quantity than Montreal, who even Coach Burke admitted in an interview earlier this week he knew very little about. The Carabins put up a good fight for a team in its second year, but by the end of the game just couldn’t keep up. Wisconsin likely won’t have any such trouble.

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RPI vs. University of Montreal
Exhibition Game – Houston Field House (Troy, NY)
9/25/10 – 4:00pm
RPI 8, UM 3

BOX SCORES:
RECAPS:
RECORD: 0-0-0 (0-0-0 ECAC)

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Upcoming Games

Oct. 1 - @ Wisconsin (8:07pm)
Oct. 2 - @ Wisconsin (8:07pm)
Oct. 8 - Vermont (7pm)
Oct. 9 - Vermont (4pm)
Posted by Gary Russinko at 9:30 AM 0 comments
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