Box Score

ITHACA, N.Y. – No. 3 Cornell potted the puck three times in the second period, and that proved too much for visiting Rensselaer to overcome in a 3-0 Big Red win at Lynah Rink on Friday night.

Cornell's Brianne Jenner, Chelsea Karpenko and Alyssa Gagliardi scored goals in an 11-minute stretch of the second period, and Lauren Slebodnick bounced back from a tough road weekend to earn her fourth shutout of the year.

Cornell (20-3, 15-3 ECAC Hockey) has now defeated the Engineers (8-17-4, 5-10-2) nine consecutive times and won both games this season against RPI by a 3-0 margin. The Big Red picked up its 10th win in its last 11 games and earned its third 20-win season in history. Cornell now also has 30 points in league play for the third consecutive year and third time ever.

The evening started slowly for the Big Red, who had three opportunities on the power play in the first period but came up short on all of them. Cornell had 58 seconds of four-on-three hockey at one point and outshot the Engineers 12-5 in the period but came up empty.

The second period, though, saw Cornell convert on three shots to take command of the contest.

The first blow came at the 8:31 mark of the period off a slap shot from the blue line by Lauriane Rougeau. Receiving a pass from the right point from Jillian Saulnier, Rougeau fired toward the net. The puck went off the shin pads of Jenner and trickled through the legs of Engineers goalie Kelly O'Brien to put the Big Red on the board.

Just 78 seconds later, the Big Red doubled its lead. Senior captain Catherine White got in front of an Engineers shot near the blue line and then picked up the rebound of her block. White started a two-on-one breakout, and Chelsea Karpenko finished from the right side of the net after receiving a last-second pass from White.

The last goal came with 3:32 remaining in the period on another long shot from the point. This one went off the stick of Alyssa Gagliardi from the right side, traveling all the way past O'Brien for the third goal.

Slebodnick, who entered last weekend's games at St. Lawrence and Clarkson with the nation's best goals against average, returned to form in earning her fourth shutout. She made an excellent series of saves in the first period on a shot and its rebound, and her night concluded with 12 saves total.

Away from Ithaca, No. 10 Dartmouth dropped a 2-1 contest at home against Princeton, setting up the Big Red up to potentially clinch the Ivy League title on Saturday. If Princeton loses at No. 8 Harvard, Cornell will win the Ivy League championship for the third year in a row. Otherwise, Cornell can claim the Ivy League title by its own hands next weekend at Yale and Brown.

The Big Red get right back to action on Saturday afternoon, facing off against Union in Lynah Rink at 4 p.m. Afterward, the team is holding a ceremony to celebrate the career of former Cornell player and Brown coach Digit Murphy '83 in Friends Hall.