Women’s Ice Hockey: The No. 7 Bulldogs dominate the Crimson and Big Green

The Yale women’s ice hockey team competed in back-to-back home games last weekend, beating the Harvard Crimson and Dartmouth Big Green.

Kate Estevez

02:03 AM, November 3, 2023

at the end of this week, number 7 The Yale women’s ice hockey team (3–1–0, 3–1–0 ECAC) faced the Harvard Crimson (0–5–0, 0–5–0 ECAC) and the Dartmouth Big Green (2–3–1, 1 ). –3–1 ECAC) in their native lands.

The Bulldogs picked up wins over both teams, dominating the Crimson 2-1 and the Big Green 8-0.

The Bulldogs faced the Crimson on Friday, October 27 in their fourth game of the season. Although Crimson Gwyn Lapp scored on the Elis, Sylvia Bojarski ’26 and Emma DeCorby ’25 helped the Bulldogs come back and effectively win over their rivals, finishing the game with a score of 2-1.

“The win over Harvard was especially exciting because we were able to beat our opponent,” said ’27 forward Susie Higuchi. “I think getting the win against Dartmouth was definitely big because it reflects how much control we have over them. For our future games, I think we’re just trying to keep the momentum going and look for the same success we had this weekend with the other teams.”

The next day, the Dartmouth women’s ice hockey team visited the Bulldogs in the Whale, and after 60 minutes, the Elis remained dominated by the Big Green in an eight-to-nil defeat.

After these two games, the team reached an all-time high of being undefeated in the Ivy League. This season, aside from winning the Harvard game and the Dartmouth game, the Yalies also defeated the No. 15 Princeton Tigers (3–3–0, 1–3–0 ECAC), moving them higher into the ECAC standings.

“The biggest thing I learned from last season was to never take any wins for granted.” said Captain Eli Hartje ’24. “Winning is hard, especially in the ECAC Tournament where every team is so competitive and highly ranked. The games are a grind night in and day out, so every win we love is just as important as the last one. On a personal level, I hope to live up to a high level of leadership Which I learned from my former leader, Claire Dalton. [’23] And Greta Skarzynski [‘23]. They have been amazing role models, and I want to lead this team to new heights just like they did!

As the team heads into their future matches, they remain positive and enthusiastic. They came out last year as ECAC regular season champions, and they are ready for this season.

The News spoke to Yale women’s ice hockey head coach Mark Bolding about his goals for the remainder of this season.

“One of the highlights of last weekend was seeing our captain, senior Elle Hartje, pass last year’s captain Claire Dalton to become the program’s all-time leader in assists,” Bolding said. “This is a tremendous achievement and we are very proud of Elle and know she is going to have a great year for us. As a team, we are striving for more consistency in our passing and attacking attacks. We know we can play fast but connecting our lines and creating and converting first class scoring opportunities is the priority.”

The Bulldogs face No. 10 Cornell Big Red (6-0-1, 2-0-0 ECAC) and No. 3 Colgate Raiders (7-1-0, 2-0-0 ECAC) this weekend in Ithaca, N.Y. and Hamilton , New York respectively.