TROY, N.Y.— The Cornell women's hockey team secured its first weekend sweep of the season when it passed Rensselaer, 2-1, at Houston Field House Saturday afternoon.  RPI scored on its first shot of the day before the Big Red answered back in the same period. Another Cornell goal in the second led to a 2-1 lead headed into the third before a final period goal by RPI forced the Big Red to answer back in the form of a Lily Delianedis redirect for the game winner. 

Seven Big Red skaters recorded points in the victory while Lindsay Browning secured the win with 19 saves. 

RPI jumped to an early lead just 42 seconds into the game when Lauren Severson caught a pass on her backhand from Marah Wagner and lifted the puck over Browning's glove-side leg pad to give the Engineers (4-10-0) a 1-0 advantage.

Later in the period at the 5:00 minute mark, Gabbie Rud worked the puck up through the RPI zone and dished a backhanded pass over her left shoulder to Leah MacSween who fired off a shot that was deflected off the leg pad of Amanda Rampado. Kaitlin Jockims collected the deflection and moved the puck from behind the goal line to the middle of the RPI zone before firing a shot through traffic that deflected off an RPI defender as well as Amanda Rampano (31 saves) to make it 1-1 at the first intermission. 

Cornell won the opening faceoff of the second period and moved the puck to the corner before coming free and finding Rory Guilday on the blue line. Guilday passed up the boards to Gillis Frechette who made a cross-ice pass to Ashley Messier who took a one footed-shot and found daylight to give the Big Red the 2-1 advantage just 27 seconds into the period.  

At the 13:34 mark of the third, Makenna Chokelal was called to the penalty box for interference and the Engineers went on its first power play of the period. Julia Blitz scored the equalizer for RPI after going bar down from the top of the circle. Browning was screened and immediately dropped into butterfly position where the puck was able to shoot past her shoulder for the power play goal. The Engineers were 1-4 on power plays while the Big Red were 0-2 on converting.

With time winding down and overtime looking like more of a possibility, Gillis Frechette passed the puck up to the top of the crease at the 4:00 mark and Lily Delianedis was right there for a textbook redirect to send the Big Red back to Ithaca with two league wins. 

The Big Red totaled 60 shots to RPI's 43 and won the faceoff battle, 26-21.

Cornell returns to Lynah Rink Friday and Saturday when it faces #8 Quinnipiac and vote-receiving Princeton.