Hanover
Perhaps the senior backstop had an inkling of what was in store, for No. 3 Clarkson bombarded her with 46 shots en route to a 3-0 victory. Dartmouth had 16 shots, one or two genuine scoring chances and won 19 of 56 draws while dropping to 5-18 overall and 3-14 in ECAC play.
Genevieve Bannon scored all three goals for Clarkson, and teammates Loren Gabel and Cayley Mercer each had two assists. Goalie Shea Tiley made 16 saves.
The Golden Knights, who lead the 12-team conference, attempted 85 shots overall. Seventeen flew wide and 22 were blocked by defenders in front of Chemago, who faced 42 shots in her team’s previous game, a 6-1 loss to Colgate. Dartmouth has been shut out seven times and outscored, 63-26, this winter.
“I thought we played excellent, fantastic,” said first-year coach Laura Shuler, pointing out that Dartmouth held Clarkson scoreless in nine power-play chances. “That’s the No. 1 power play in our conference. I thought our girls were resilient and gave second, third and fourth efforts. I was really happy with our performance.”
The evening was capped in unusual fashion with the ejection of Big Green defenseman Tess Bracken for physical abuse of an official with two minutes remaining. The sophomore’s eligibility for today’s home game against No. 4 St. Lawrence will be determined by league administrators once they’ve reviewed video of the incident.
“I wasn’t happy with the refereeing tonight at all,” said Schuler, whose team is sixth among the country’s 41 NCAA Division I teams with an average of 10.0 penalty minutes per game. “They did not call it both ways.
“There’s no checking, but there is body contact in our game. They called some checking penalties against us … and when the same thing happened against us, nothing was called.”
Dartmouth committed 11 of the game’s 14 penalties, and Bracken earned her early exit when she allegedly knocked down an official during a post-whistle scuffle next to Chemago. The hullabaloo started when Bracken and Clarkson’s Rhyen McGill crashed into each other as the goaltender covered the puck in her crease.
“I think that was the wrong call, and we have video to prove it,” Schuler said. “(Bracken) was on the bottom of a pile and trying to get up and I don’t think (the ejection) was warranted.”
Asked if her players might be growing irritable during a discouraging season, Schuler shook her head.
“I don’t think our kids were frustrated tonight,” she said. “They didn’t give up at all. It’s all positive and we’re moving forward.”
Chemago certainly didn’t give up, although she plays behind the country’s 39th-ranked offense. The Alberta native has a .926 save percentage, tied for 14th out of 53 goaltenders who have played at least 33 percent of their team’s minutes this winter. Does she feel as if surrendering even one goal a game is too much for her team to overcome?
“I don’t think of it that way,” Chemago said. “I do whatever I can to be successful and I don’t worry about the outcome so much. Sometimes it hurts, but you have to still come to the rink and find moments you enjoy.”
Chemago and her six fellow seniors, all of whom play significant minutes, have only five regular-season games remaining. Dartmouth is tied for 10th place in a conference that accepts only the top eight for its postseason tournament. Should it miss that event for a second consecutive year, it would the first time the program has experienced back-to-back playoff absences since its first postseason appearance in 1989.
The Big Green is seven points behind eighth-place Rensselaer. However, the Engineers, seventh-place Yale, 10th-place Brown and 12th-place Union comprise four of Dartmouth’s last five opponents.
“We have to learn how to bring playoff intensity to the rink,” said Chemago, whose squad surrendered one goal in the first period and two more during the second stanza, when it was outshot, 18-2. “Finding that next gear and dialing it up even more is going to be important for the next couple of weekends.
“I’m not really thinking about the end, and I’m just going to keep going until it happens.”
Notes: Clarkson is 21-4-4 overall and 15-1-1 in ECAC action. … Schuler pulled Chemago for nearly two minutes midway through the third period after a Golden Knights penalty. She did the same with eight minutes remaining last weekend against Colgate and the move led to a pair of empty-net goals for the Raiders. This time, there were no tallies and Chemago changed on the fly to get back in her net once the power play expired. … Schuler declined to provide an update on junior forward Brooke Ahbe, who has been out injured since Nov. 28. Freshman defenseman Sara Lopez-Wheeler, also hurt, hasn’t played since Oct. 29, leaving Dartmouth with 10 forwards. Friday, the 10th was freshman Sabrina Huett, a Plainfield product who took an occasional shift. … Former Dartmouth hockey player and 2016 graduate Laura Stacey, who hopes to be on next year’s Canadian Olympic team, attended Friday’s game, as did Dartmouth President Phil Hanlon.