Elina Huffman ‘29
Staff Writer
The Holy Cross women’s hockey team is back and better than ever. Last Friday and Saturday, our Women’s Ice Hockey team faced off against the University of Delaware during their home opener. Our extremely fierce and talented team is nationally ranked fourteenth according to the NCAA Power Index, which is undeniably impressive! Last year, they had a historic run and went to the Hockey East Tournament semifinals, for the first time in program history. In addition to this incredible run, the team won nineteen games, ten of which were Hockey East wins. This set a new program record for Hockey East victories. Towards the end of the season, they were ranked eighth nationally, and were amongst the top three for the Hockey East conference. For this coming season, the team is expected to do even better than last year.
In their first game against Delaware, Holy Cross put up a valiant effort. Within the first five minutes of the game, junior Amanda Aslan, scored the first goal for Holy Cross. Unfortunately, Delaware fought back and scored a goal around eleven minutes into the game which then tied it up. With a quick response, sophomore Violet Carroll got the second goal for our women’s team. Throughout this game, it was very physical with the women on the Delaware team being unnecessarily aggressive, leading to some very questionable calls being made by the refs. They were barely calling anything against the Delaware team, but regardless of that, the Holy Cross women played tremendously, especially the defense. The goalie for the game, freshman Livia Debnarova, had an incredible thirty saves in the net. Our team came out on top, winning the majority of faceoffs and shots on goal. The score stayed the same until late in the third period with one of the women on the Delaware team scoring a goal in the last minute. The game went into overtime with Holy Cross unfortunately losing; however, Holy Cross would not let Delaware stay winning in the second game.
During the game on Saturday, Holy Cross played even better than they did the day before. Sophomore Naemi Herzig opened up the game by scoring quickly, and then just two short minutes later, senior Lulu Rourke scored another one. For the rest of the first period, they were able to hold Delaware off from scoring on the Holy Cross net. Then during the second period, Aslan scored another goal, which put Holy Cross further in the lead. Lastly, in the third period, Herzig scored her second goal of the game during a power play. By doing this it ensured the win for the Holy Cross Women’s Ice Hockey team. During this game as well, the defense played absolutely outstanding, only allowing Delaware to attempt nineteen shots on goal. Another positive of the game was Debnarova having her first career shutout at Holy Cross. The Delaware team was also playing very aggressive this game, but thankfully the refs during this game were calling most of the calls. The Crusaders are ready to keep fighting when they hit the rink against Assumption’s Women’s Ice Hockey team on October first.
Copy edited by Molly Croft ‘29 9/28
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