Brigid O'Gorman '11 controls the puck. Photo by Will Tomasian.
Heading into the NESCAC tournament, the women’s ice hockey team is sitting right in the center of the pack in fifth place out of nine teams.
This past weekend, the Camels needed to win both of their final two games in order to clinch a home playoff game. Unfortunately, the team lost 4-2 to Trinity College on Saturday after defeating Wesleyan 5-2 on Friday.
To secure a first round playoff game, the team was also depending on the outcome of games between Bowdoin and Middlebury and Bowdoin and Williams. Although the playoff seeds are becoming increasingly complicated due to the level of competitiveness during the final weekend, it is clear that the Camels needed to control what happened in their home rink. Sadly, they fell short in this endeavor.
Overall, Coach Kristin Steele said, “The team is very happy to have put ourselves in a spot for the games to really matter this weekend. Coming off two great road wins at Hamilton, we feel that we are a better team than we were two weeks ago. Many people have stepped up their games and the team is playing some of its best hockey.”
The start of the playoffs is not the women’s hockey program’s only source of excitement this week. Brigid O’Gorman ’11 was named a finalist for the Hockey Humanitarian Award for the second consecutive year for her work at the Elizabeth Durante Medical Clinic in Kaberamaido, Uganda and for her volunteer work at High Hopes Therapeutic Riding Center and the Special Olympics Speed Skating Center of Southeastern Connecticut.
Steele and O’Gorman’s teammates are very proud of her efforts. “The work that she has put into these projects is potentially hard to grasp [due to its magnitude]. I love the fact that she has had [an] equal impact locally [as she has had internationally]…She’s definitely taken advantage of opportunities in front of her and created opportunities that had not existed,” said Steele.
The award recipient will be announced at the 2011 NCAA Men’s Frozen Four Tournament on Friday, April 8, 2011. •
Additional reporting by Nick Woolf ’11, Sports Editor.
