Hanover
A once-successful program, now in the midst of a substantial rebuild, looked every bit an incomplete project on Friday during a 4-0 loss to No. 10 St. Lawrence. Dartmouth trailed, 3-0, late in the game before pulling goaltender Christie Honor for an extra skater. The Saints earned an empty-net tally before a gathering that had peaked at roughly 300 people in Thompson Arena and was announced at 653.
Credit interim coach Joe Marsh, formerly the longtime men’s boss at St. Lawrence, with instilling optimism in his players. The picture painted against the Saints, however, wasn’t pretty.
“We try to only look at our record to know where we’ve been and not where we’re going,” said defenseman and leading scorer Hailey Noronha, who has 10 points for a team that’s lost three straight and won one of its last nine games. “It’s important each day to try and see positives in little ways. We’re putting up a fight.”
The Big Green has allowed four or more goals in a game nine times this winter. Dartmouth, one of 40 NCAA Division I teams, ranks in the mid-30s in most national statistics, consistently ahead of only the likes of Brown, St. Michael’s, Minnesota State and Post (Conn.) University.
Dartmouth (4-13-1 overall, 2-10-1 ECAC) was credited with 25 shots against St. Lawrence. Only seven of those were taken between the faceoff circles. The hosts managed just one from that location during a first period when it fell behind, 2-0, on a pair of close-range shots by Kennedy Marchment and Rachael Smith that shouldn’t have eluded Honor.
“We lost to a good team that can capitalize,” said Marsh, who stepped in this season for head coach Laura Schuler, currently guiding the Canadian women’s Olympic team. “We lost some key battles in front, but overall that was a solid effort. We are learning lessons. Sometimes, they’re learned the hard way.”
Dartmouth had trouble breaking cleanly out of its own zone. It mostly resorted to chipping the puck off the boards or glass to get over its own blue line and dumping the puck in from the red line to establish any sort of offensive presence.
Marsh said that against a strong forechecking team like St. Lawrence, a single bobble or hesitation on the back end can cause a missed beat and chaos in center ice.
“We tried to force a lot of passes through feet,” Marsh said. “We had some bungled breakouts, which slowed us down, and St. Lawrence smelled that out. Our defensemen have to get their feet moving and get the puck up quick, so we’re not fighting one-on-one battles in the neutral zone once the puck gets there.”
Clarkson, the defending national champion, enters today’s game with the Big Green at 21-3-1. It’s on a six-game winning streak and tied with Colgate atop the ECAC at 11-2.
The Golden Knights’ top two scorers each entered the weekend with 40 points. Dartmouth as a team has 67.
“We’ve got everything to gain and not very much to lose,” Marsh said.
Marchment, a 2017 finalist for the Patty Kazmaier Award, awarded to the nation’s top player, finished with two goals for St. Lawrence, and teammate Kayla Nielsen also scored. Sonjia Shelly made 25 saves in the Saints’ net.
Notes: Marsh credited forward Sabrina Huett, who’s from Plainfield, with a good performance on Friday. The sophomore has one goal, a minus-3 rating and has taken 15 shots on goal in 18 games. … St. Lawrence had 31 shots during a game that featured only one penalty. … Honor has played 86 percent of Dartmouth’s minutes. She has a 3.35 goals-against average and a .910 save percentage, solid numbers given her team’s struggles. … Dartmouth has been outscored, 64-28. It has surrendered nearly twice as many shots as it’s taken and has no regular player with a plus rating. The Big Green’s combined special teams began Friday ranked 33rd among Division I teams. … The Dartmouth record for fewest overall victories during a season is six, set two years ago. Its ECAC version of that mark since conference play increased to 20 games in 2004-05 is five victories. That was set last winter. … George Crowe, Dartmouth’s men’s hockey coach from 1975-84 and its women’s coach from 1986-98, attended the game. Marsh played for him as a teenager at Phillips Exeter Academy during the 1970-71 season. In turn, current St. Lawrence women’s coach Chris Wells, a 1992 graduate of that school, played for Marsh in the Saints men’s program.
Tris Wykes can be reached at twykes@vnews.com or 603-727-3227.