This weekend, the women's ice hockey team (11-15-3, 7-12-3 ECAC) will play its final regular season game against No. 6 Cornell University (21-6-1, 16-5-0) ) played against. ECAC) and No. 5 Colgate (27-6-1, 18-4-0 ECAC). Bruno lost 2-1 to the Big Red in sudden death on Friday night and lost 6-0 to the Raiders on Saturday.
Defensive resiliency defined the two-game homestand, as each ranked opponent had more than twice as many shots on goal as Brown. A barrage of these attacks fueled Bruno goaltender Kayleigh Doyle '24's career performance against Cornell University. She rejected 50 of 52 shots on goal, giving her a save percentage of .962.
Doyle credited her accomplishments with homogenizing the front line and defense into one unit. “This game was just blocking shots. “I don't think they had a lot of chances to get the puck through on the power play,” she said. “I thought we did a really good job of taking away their lanes. And even when we got hit with shots there, (teammates) let us see (to control) the rebounds. .”
After holding on to a 0-0 scoreline in the first period, Bruno found his attacking foothold in the second period. With a 5-on-4 advantage at 9:56, defensive player Meadow Carman ’24 hit the Big Red goal from half the ice. Forward Eva DeCoste '27 took a good bounce off a busy lane and dove from the right side to pass to Anna Gallagher '24, who slotted the puck into the back of the net. It was Gallagher's first goal of the season and DeCoste's fourth assist in the past two weeks.
Cornell tried to break into the home defense from the wings, get physical and commit four penalties in 11 minutes between the second and third periods to tie the score.
“I thought my opponent was a little out of sync today, but I think I was able to respond well.'' “We played clean, but we're always ready to play physical to protect ourselves,” Bruno head coach Melanie Luzzi said.
The improved physicality allowed the home team to make more power plays, including a 5-on-3 late in the second period, but Brown was unable to capitalize on that advantage and score. After more than 23 minutes of back-and-forth, at 14:25 of the third period, Big Red fired the puck at close range on Bruno's goal to make the game 1-1.
Cornell intensified this offensive pressure throughout overtime, resulting in Jade Iginla '26 committing a crucial interference penalty, giving Cornell a 4-3 skater advantage. Big Red's Izzy Daniel quickly scored the winning goal, handing Brown his 11th loss against a ranked opponent this season.
Brown was unable to regain momentum Saturday against Colgate. The Bears committed zero penalties and Doyle's 34 saves on shots on goal weren't enough to stop the Raiders from having five different skaters score in a lopsided 6-0 victory. Three of those goals were scored early on.
The Bears will open the Eastern College Athletic Conference next Saturday at home against Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
