Women's Hockey - New Hampshire (15 Oct)

RPI had just a single game this weekend, as they played the New Hampshire Wildcats at Houson Field House on Friday night. A close game, which was tied at one, two, and three, saw UNH take the lead for the last time late in the third period. Despite a late RPI power play and extra attacker, New Hampshire held onto the one goal lead late in the game to leave Troy with a 4-3 victory.

New Hampshire

Smelker/Vandegrift/Harrison

Padmore/Dunlop/Horton

Sanders/Jakubowski/O’Keefe

Letuligasenoa/Guillemette /Mankey

Le Donne/Vadner

Castignetti/Marzario

Daniel/Stapleton

Van der Bliek

The first period started out in New Hampshire’s favor, as freshman Nicole Gifford put a puck past Sonja van der Bliek in the early going to give UNH a 1-0 lead just 4:25 into the game. The Engineers peppered the UNH net with shots, recording 11 in the frame to UNH’s six, but it wasn’t until the final two minutes of the period that RPI would find the back of the net. Jordan Smelker took a pass from Katie Daniels and snuck a shot over the glove of UNH netminder Kayley Herman to tie the game at one, at 18:27. Just 55 seconds later, Kendra Dunlop intercepted a UNH pass during a line change and skated in one-on-one, beating her defender and scoring at 19:22 to give the Engineers a lead heading into the locker room.

The momentum didn’t carry through the intermission for the Engineers, as Courtney Birchard lobbed a shot in from the far side of the faceoff dot which snuck past van der Bliek only 1:15 into the second period to tie the game at two. The second period saw UNH pick up the pace and put 11 shots of their own on goal, and one of those at the 10:25 mark beat van der Bliek to give the Wildcats their one goal lead back, 3-2. Jill Vandegrift tied the game once again for the Engineers five minutes later after taking a pass from Daniels and skating down the right side to send a shot past Herman to make it 3-3.

New Hampshire scored again near the midpoint of the third period to take a 4-3 lead, and that one would stand despite RPI’s late power play opportunity and extra attacker. The Engineers only managed three shots on goal during the 34-second 6-on-4 advantage and Herman stopped each to hang on for the win.

Smelker led the Engineers in shots on goal with six, while Vandegrift and Dunlop each finished with five. Total shots in the game ended up in a near dead heat, with RPI tallying 30 to UNH’s 29.

RPI hits the road next weekend for a pair of games against Hockey East opponents. The Engineers will face off against Providence at 7pm Friday at Schneider Arena before traveling to Boston’s Matthews Arena for a Sunday afternoon game against the Northeastern Huskies at 1pm. Providence should prove a difficult test for RPI, as the Friars have already defeated SLU (6-1), Clarkson (5-0), and Colgate (2-1) on the way to their current 5-1 record. Northeastern has had more mixed results thusfar, squeaking out a 3-2 overtime win over Union and losing 4-0 to Quinnipiac as part of their current 3-1-1 record.

Neither game will be carried on WRPI next weekend, however Providence will have subscription audio available while Northeastern will have streaming audio and subscription video available as well. I will be live tweeting updates from Matthews Arena for Sunday’s game on the Without a Peer twitter feed, http://www.twitter.com/without_a_peer.

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RPI vs. New Hampshire

Non-Conference Game – Houston Field House (Troy, NY)

10/15/10 – 7:00pm

UNH 4, RPI 3

BOX SCORES:

USCHO: http://www.uscho.com/box/womens-hockey/2010/10/15/new-hampshire-vs-rensselaer/

College Hockey Stats: http://collegehockeystats.net/1011/boxes/wrenunh1.o15

RECAPS:

RPI: http://www.rpiathletics.com/news/2010/10/15/WICE_1015104806.aspx

UNH: http://unhwildcats.com/sports/wice/2010-11/releases/20101015w2ufb8

RECORD: 0-3-2 (0-0-0 ECAC)

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Upcoming Games

Oct. 22 – at Providence (7pm)

Oct. 24 – at Northeastern (1pm)

Oct. 29 – at SLU (7pm)

Oct. 30 – at Clarkson (4pm)

Nov. 5 – Princeton (7pm)

Nov. 6 – Quinnipiac (4pm)

Homecoming

It's homecoming week at RPI, which means there'll be plenty of alumni in attendance, especially from classes ending in 0 or 5, since they have reunion this weekend. It's a great weekend of hockey on tap in Troy, as the women take on New Hampshire on Friday night while the men face Bentley on Saturday night.

For the men, there's also tonight's matchup at Northeastern. We'll have the chat interface up at 5 tonight, and it'll be Perry Laskaris and Tom Reale with the call on WRPI.

Don't forget that the Bentley game starts at 5pm, not the usual 7pm. If you show up at 7, the game's either going to be over or almost over, and then you're going to utter a string of expletives. No one wants to see that.

Pump it up.

Women's Hockey - at #4 New Hampshire

RPI traveled to Durham, NH today for the first ever meeting between the Engineers and the New Hampshire Wildcats. Ranked fourth in the nation in the latest USCHO.com poll, UNH promised to be a tough challenge for an Engineer team that has been hot and cold at intervals this season. Coming off a 3-point ECAC weekend where Saturday's tie against 10th place Brown left a sour taste in fans' and players' mouths alike, RPI entered the Whittemore Center looking for a big non-conference win to get things back on track heading into a weekend series at Robert Morris before getting back into the remainder of the ECAC schedule. It was not the Engineers' lucky night however, as despite a strong performance and three goals, they were bested by the Wildcats 4-3.

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New Hampshire

Horton/O'Keefe/Weidner
Wright/Harrison/Vandegrift
Dunlop/Naslund/Vadner
Padmore/Jakubowski/Stapleton

Le Donne/Gersten
Castignetti/Haller
Chace/Daniels

Van der Bliek

UNH opened up the scoring midway through the first with a power play goal by Kelly Paton, who led Hockey East in scoring entering the game with 22 points in 13 games. After a few penalties were exchanged, Allison Wright tied it at one with a shorthanded goal just after a 4-on-4 ended and UNH got a player back. Wright's goal was RPI's second shorty of the season. This tied RPI with SLU, Quinnipiac, and Clarkson in the ECAC for shorthanded goals. From there it was all RPI for the next 15 minutes.

The teams entered the locker room tied at one, but the first half of the next period found RPI dominating UNH, with the Wildcats unable to clear the puck from their zone for much of that time. The Engineers cashed in on their pressure as Alisa Harrison netted two goals at 1:28 and 6:53 of the second to give RPI a 3-1 lead. UNH answered back with pressure of their own in the latter half of the period, throwing a ton of rubber at Sonja van der Bliek, and Kelly Paton picked up her second of the game on a delayed penalty at 15:05, to send the teams to the locker room with RPI holding onto the lead, 3-2.

UNH continued the pressure in the third as RPI looked like they were settling back a bit and trying to protect the lead. As we've learned from RPI teams the past several seasons, this rarely works and UNH made the Engineers pay for it with a power play goal by Kristina Lavoie followed very quickly by another goal by Kelly Paton to give her the hat trick midway through the period. RPI had a chance to recover with a power play opportunity shortly after, but UNH held up on the kill and kept RPI out of the net despite a couple of good Engineer chances. RPI took a penalty of their own with 4:36 left in the game, putting themselves down by retaliating on an uncalled cross-check by UNH. The Engineers pressured UNH on the kill and kept them from setting up on the power play, escaping the man advantage without giving up a goal. Despite nearly a minute and a half with the net empty and some strong pressure in the UNH zone, RPI was unable to find the equalizer and the game went in the books 4-3 in UNH's favor. Overall, the Engineers looked very strong and the came could easily have gone either way.

RPI is on the road again next weekend with a pair of games against Robert Morris, the only team from the CHA the Engineers have yet to play this season. Game times are 2:05pm Friday and Saturday. The Engineers then have a home-and-home with Union before taking a month off for winter break.

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ECAC Standings (as of 11/21/09, with ECAC play complete for the weekend)

               GP   Pts     ECAC      All
 Cornell        8    13     6-1-1     6-3-1
 Clarkson       7    12     6-1-0     12-2-1
 Princeton      8    11     5-2-1     6-3-1
 Quinnipiac     8    11     4-1-3     6-4-4
 Harvard        8    10     5-3-0     5-3-1
 Dartmouth      8     9     4-3-1     4-3-1
 St. Lawrence   7     7     3-3-1     6-5-4
 RPI            6     6     2-2-2     4-7-4
 Colgate        8     5     1-4-3     2-9-3
 Brown          8     3     0-5-3     1-6-3
 Yale           8     2     1-7-0     1-7-1
 Union          6     1     0-5-1     2-9-1

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RPI @ #4 New Hampshire
Non-conference Game - Whittemore Center (Durham, NH)
11/21/09 - 5:00pm
UNH 4, RPI 3

BOX SCORES:
College Hockey Stats: http://collegehockeystats.net/0910/boxes/wrenunh1.n21

RECAPS:
RPI: http://www.rpiathletics.com/news/2009/11/21/WICE_1121091255.aspx
UNH: http://unhwildcats.com/sports/wice/2009-10/releases/20091121i8pfdu
ECAC: http://www.ecachockey.com/women/2009-10/Game_Stories/20092111_RPI_UNH

RECORD: 4-7-4 (2-2-2 ECAC Hockey, 6 points)

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Upcoming Games

Nov. 27 - @ Robert Morris
Nov. 28 - @ Robert Morris
Dec. 5 - @ Union
Dec. 6 - Union