ITHACA, N.Y. — For the first time in program history, the women's hockey team will head west to Wisconsin this weekend to take on the No. 1 ranked Badgers. The two storied programs - with a combined 1,030 wins - have never met on the ice before.
GAME #10: CORNELL BIG RED at No. 1 WISCONSIN BADGERS
TIME: 8 p.m. ET
DATE: Friday, Nov. 25, 2016
PLACE: LaBahn Arena — Madison, Wis.
LIVE VIDEO: BTN Plus
LIVE STATS: UWBadgers.com
GAME #11: CORNELL BIG RED at No. 1 WISCONSIN BADGERS
TIME: 9 p.m. ET
DATE: Saturday, Nov. 26, 2016
PLACE: LaBahn Arena — Madison, Wis.
LIVE VIDEO: BTN Plus
LIVE STATS: UWBadgers.com
RECORDS: Cornell 6-2-1 (4-2-1 ECAC Hockey), Wisconsin 12-1-1 (10-1-1 WCHA)*
*-records do not include Friday's results
Game Notes: Cornell | Wisconsin
About the Big Red
Cornell had a three-point conference weekend with a 3-3 tie against No. 8 Quinnipiac on Friday and a 2-1 win on Saturday over a Princeton team that is receiving votes in both polls. Against the Bobcats, Cornell jumped out to a 3-0 lead only to see the Bobcats claw their way back to force overtime. Against the Tigers, senior goaltender
Paula Voorheis made 38 saves, including 19 in the third period, to help the Big Red get the road win. … Cornell earned four conference points the weekend before with wins over Brown (4-0) and Yale (4-2). In the ECAC Hockey opener, the Big Red dropped a tough 1-0 game to Rensselaer on Oct. 28 but earned the first conference points of the season the next day with a 3-1 win at Union. The following Tuesday, the Big Red scored first but ultimately dropped a tough 2-1 tilt to Colgate. … Cornell opened the season with a two-game sweep of Mercyhurst.
About Wisconsin
The Badgers, who have received the No. 1 ranking in every single poll this season, enter the weekend series with a 12-1-1 overall record and a 10-1-1 record in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association. The lone loss came this past weekend in a 4-1 game against No. 3 Minnesota-Duluth. … Wisconsin has played one other ECAC Hockey school this season, traveling to Clarkson in October and beating the Knights 3-2 (OT) and 4-1. … Sarah Nurse leads the Badgers in scoring with 17 points (11-6—17). The Badgers have four other players in double-digits in Sydney McKibbon (3-10—13), Presley Norby (3-9—12), Emily Clark (4-7—11) and Abby Roque (3-7—10). … Ann-Renée Desbiens has backstopped the Badgers in goal, going 11-0-1 while posting a .953 save percentage and a 0.74 goals against average. Desbiens also has six shutouts and recently broke the NCAA career shutout record with her 44th blank slate. … As a team, the Badgers are only giving up 1.00 goals per game and the penalty killing unit has killed of 91.2 percent of penalties … Wisconsin's 3.57 goals per game is third in the nation while the 13.2 percent conversion rate on the man-advantage ranks them 19th.
The Series with Wisconsin
This is the first time that these two teams have met. Wisconsin is 29-7-2 all-time against current ECAC Hockey schools while Cornell is 5-9-1 all-time against current WCHA schools. The teams have twice come within a game of playing each other for the National Championship – at the 2011 Frozen Four and the 2012 Frozen Four, with Cornell bowing out both times in one semifinal while Wisconsin advanced from the other.
About Head Coach Doug Derraugh '91
Now in his 12th season directing the Cornell women's hockey program in 2016-17,
Doug Derraugh has brought the Big Red women to their place among the nation's elite. He amassed a 202-126-28 record in his first 11 seasons as the head coach of the Big Red, with his 200th win coming in the form of a 4-2 win last year against Yale. Cornell has made the ECAC Hockey Tournament each of the last nine seasons, won the tournament four of the last seven years and advanced to the NCAA Tournament in five of those seasons. Derraugh guided the Big Red to the national title game in his fifth season and back-to-back-to-back NCAA Frozen Four appearances in 2010, 2011 and 2012. He led the team to five consecutive 20-win seasons for the first time in program history in 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-2014.
And Then There Were Five
When the puck drops on Cornell and Wisconsin, it will be the first-ever meeting between the two storied programs. It will also drop the number of teams in Division I NCAA hockey that Cornell has never played down to five. The Big Red has yet to take the ice against two other WCHA teams in Minnesota State and North Dakota as well as two CHA teams in Lindenwood and Penn State. Merrimack, which joined Division I play in Hockey East at the beginning of the 2015-16 season, is the fifth team that Cornell has not played.
The Kids Are Alright
In the season-opening series against Mercyhurst, a member of the Class of 2020 played a factor in four of Cornell's five goals. Since then, the seven newcomers have notched 20 of the Big Red's 53 points and 12 of the team's 22 goals.
Kristin O'Neill's 0.78 goals per game leads all freshmen in the nation while her 1.11 points per game is fourth best.
Saves and Shutouts
Senior goaltender
Paula Voorheis has made a total of 137 saves in her five starts this season, giving her 1,804 saves in her career and placing her third all-time in program history. Alanna Hayes sits first with 2,381 saves while Chantal Toth sits in second with 1,822. Voorheis, who made a career-high 47 saves against Clarkson in Game 2 of the ECAC Hockey quarterfinals last year, made a total of 822 saves during the 2014-15 season, which is tops in single-season history. Voorheis also sits tied for fifth all-time with seven shutouts, two behind Hayes' who sits fourth with nine and 16 behind Amanda Mazzotta '12, who owns the record with 22.
Century Club
A trio of Big Red players eclipsed the 100 career games played mark in the first nine games of the 2016-17 season. In the second game of the season against Mercyhurst on Oct. 22, senior
Sydney Smith played in her 100th career game in the Cornellian red and white. Senior co-captain
Kaitlin Doering skated in her 100th career game on Oct. 29 against Union. Senior forward
Hanna Bunton played her 100th career game on Saturday against Princeton. Alyssa Gagliardi '13 holds the all-time record for career games played in program history with 138.
Short-Handed? No Problem
Freshman
Kristin O'Neill tallied her third short-handed goal of the season on Friday against Quinnipiac, tying a program record and making her the nation's leader in that category. She is the first freshman to record three short-handed tallies in a season since the trio of Kendall Coyne, Alex Carpenter and Kayla Tutino each had three in their 2011-12 freshman seasons.
Hats off to Hanna
Senior
Hanna Bunton notched her second career hat trick in the Big Red's 4-0 win over Brown on Nov. 11. She scored all three goals in the third period, including the game-winner just 2:05 into the final frame.
Two 'Tenders in the Top
Senior
Paula Voorheis and sophomore Marlene Boissonnault both sit among the nation's goaltending leaders. Boissonnault has 1.23 goals against average, which is third best, while her .950 save percentage ranks her 15th. Meanwhile, Voorheis sits second in the nation with her .951 save percentage and her 1.41 goals against average is the fifth-best mark in the nation.
Scoring First
The Big Red has scored first in seven of the nine games it has played so far this season – including the last six straight – and has gone 5-1-1 in those seven games
Weekly Honors
Hanna Bunton was named the ECAC Hockey Player of the Week for Nov. 14 for her five point performance in the Big Red's wins over Brown and Yale. The senior notched a hat trick in the 4-0 win over the Bears and then assisted on two goals, including the game-winner, in a 4-2 win over the Bulldogs.
Second Period Shutouts
Cornell did not allow a goal in the second period through the first six games of the season, the longest such streak in the NCAA. Though the Big Red has allowed three goals in the second period since Yale struck on Nov. 12, the team's three goals allowed in the middle frame is still the best mark in the nation.
Preseason Honor
Sophomore defenseman
Micah Hart was named to the preseason All-ECAC team. Cornell last had a representative on the preseason all-conference team prior to the 2014-15 season when both Jill Saulnier and Brianne Jenner were selected.
Meet the Captains
Senior
Kaitlin Doering and sophomore
Micah Hart will be serving as Cornell's captains for the 2016-17 season. Doering is coming off a 2015-16 season in which she set a career high with 18 points on seven goals and 11 assists. Hart led all Big Red defensemen last year with 18 points on one goal and 17 assists, finished the season with six multi-point outings and was second on the team with 56 blocked shots. Hart is just the fourth sophomore to don a letter in program history and the second to serve as a captain. The New Kids
The New Kids
The Class of 2020 makes up 37 percent of the Big Red roster this year and consists of six forwards and one defenseman.
Grace Graham,
Hanna Mutschelknaus,
Valérie Audet,
Paige Lewis,
Kristin O'Neill and
Amy Curlew will play up front, while
Jaime Bourbonnais will patrol the blue line. Graham, Audet, O'Neill, Curlew and Bourbonnais all hail from Canada while Mutschelknaus and Lewis come from South Dakota and Connecticut, respectively.
Five Players, Six Medals
Entering the 2016-17 season, the Big Red has five players on the roster who have earned a collective six medals for Team Canada at the IIHF U-18 World Championships.
Hanna Bunton assisted on the game-winning goal in overtime of the 2013 gold medal game.
Micah Hart captained a 2015 squad that included Marlene Boissonnault and
Kristin O'Neill to a silver medal, while O'Neill and
Jaime Bourbonnais earned silver medals at the 2016 competition.
The 45th Season
With the start of the 2016-17 season, the women's hockey program embarked on its 45th season of intercollegiate play. The Big Red currently holds an all-time record of 543-491-63. Cornell, which began play with the 1972-73 season, is the second-oldest Division I women's program in the country still in existence. Brown began play in 1967-68.
Big Red Rewind
Cornell finished the 2015-16 season with a 13-14-4 record, which was good enough to make the ECAC Hockey tournament for the ninth straight year, but the team bowed out in the quarterfinal round to an eventual Frozen Four team in Clarkson.
Hanna Bunton led the Big Red in scoring with 13 goals and 14 assists for 27 points while
Jess Brown and
Kaitlin Doering finshed second and third, respectively.
Paula Voorheis went 8-12-3 between the pipes and posted a 2.38 goals against average and a .915 save percentage. In six decisions, Marlene Boissonnault went 5-1 with a 3.02 goals against average and a .882 save percentage
Pro Pipeline
Between both the Canadian Women's Hockey League and the National Women's Hockey League, 10 Cornellians appeared on a professional opening night roster. In the CWHL, the 2016 Clarkson Cup-winning Calgary Inferno boasts five former Big Red skaters in Brianne Jenner, Hayleigh Cudmore, Jessica Campbell, and Rebecca Johnston. Emily Fulton is the lone Cornell graduate skating for the Toronto Furies.
Cassandra Poudrier joins Lauriane Rougeau on the Montreal Les Canadiennes roster and
Taylor Woods has reunited with former teammate Laura Fortino on the Brampton Thunder. In the NWHL, both Alyssa Gagliardi and Lauren Slebodnick are attempting to win their second-straight Isobel Cup with the Boston Pride.
Four Cornellians Win Silver Medal at Four Nations
Laura Fortino '13, Jessica Campbell '14, Rebecca Johnston '12, and Brianne Jenner '15 all represented Canada at the 2016 Four Nations Cup in Vierumaki, Finland Nov. 1-5 and came away with silver medals. After sweeping the pool play round with wins against Finland, Sweden, and the United States, Canada took an early one goal lead over the U.S. in the gold medal game before ultimately, 5-3.
Up Next
The Big Red will return home next weekend to resume ECAC Hockey play when it takes on Harvard on Friday and Dartmouth on Saturday.
