Front Row: Connor English, Myan Adams, Jake Thompson, AJ Fiore, Kyle Ewanouski, Thomas Keith, Rob Pannell, Jason Noble, Steve Mock, Ross Gillum, Max Van Bourgondien, Mike Bronzino, Matt Taylor, Cody Levine, Shane Henry.
Second Row: Associate head athletic trainer Jim Case, assistant director for athletics performance Tom Howley, senior manager Mike Teeter, graduate student athletic rrainer Ashley Mueller, student manager Kelly McGinty, Dan Lintner, Connor Entenmann, Joe Paoletta, Chris Cook, Henry West, Matt Schattner, John Hogan, Brennan Donville, Mike Huttner, Sean Doyle, Jack Molloy, Will Joyce, Tom Freshour, assistant coach Matt Kerwick, volunteer assistant coach Fred Rothman, director of lacrosse operations Mark Wittink, assistant coach Paul Richards, head coach Ben DeLuca.
Third Row: Doug Tesoriero, Andrew West, Cody Bremner, Mike O’Neil, Connor Buczek, Erik Turner, Connor Hunt, Sten Jernudd, John Edmonds, Russell Scott, Jordan Stevens, Matt Donovan, Tony Britton.
The 2009-10 Big Red
It took three overtimes to determine the winner of the NCAA Division I Women’s Ice Hockey Championship game. Goaltender Amanda Mazzotta ’12 stopped a game-record 61 shots flung at her by the University of Minnesota-Duluth players. But a shot taken with 33 seconds on the clock slipped past her knees to give the Bulldogs their fifth national title.
Sometimes, though, a loss feels like a win.
At the beginning of the season, Doug Derraugh ’91, who was entering his fourth year as head coach, set a few goals for the Big Red: finish among the league’s top four and win a playoff series. The goals seemed lofty enough. Cornell had never finished higher than fifth in the league and had yet to claim a playoff series. The team not only had to cope with the loss of a large senior core, but also played the season without prized players Rebecca Johnston ’12 and Brianne Jenner ’13, both of whom took the year off to participate in the 2010 Winter Olympics. The team was projected to finish seventh out of 12 teams in the preseason ECAC Hockey rankings. Signs indicated that the Cornell women would enjoy decent success on the ice, maybe even a surprise victory or two. Certainly a championship run wasn’t expected.
The start of the season seemed to confirm the projection. Top-ranked Mercyhurst routed the Big Red in the first two games of the season.
Not an auspicious beginning.
The players had other ideas. Play tough; play hard. Play to win.
Cornell began to hit its stride, winning decisively against Ivy foes as the season progressed. Talk was that Cornell could possibly finish at the top of both the Ivy League and ECAC Hockey. People were starting to notice.
Cornell won the Ivy title outright for the first time in program history. Then the team set their sights on an ECAC Hockey regular-season championship by crushing Union 6-1, earning the right to host a post-season game at home, for the first time in program history. Now people were really paying attention to the Big Red. Winning the ECAC Hockey postseason championship title in overtime against Clarkson brought more attention to the team.
NCAA play started with a 6-2 rout of perennial foe and fourth-seeded Harvard on home ice. Advancing to the Frozen Four, Cornell drew top-seeded Mercyhurst with a chance to avenge two earlier losses. In a brutal overtime battle, ECAC Hockey Player of the Year Catherine White ’12 flipped the puck over the leg of Mercyhurst’s goalie for a 3-2 win, advancing the Big Red to the national championship game.
It had been a long road to the national title, and the Cornell women were not taking their moment in history lightly. The Big Red and the Bulldogs battled through regulation and three overtimes before the game was decided at the 119:26 mark when the puck slipped past Mazzotta’s leg.
One loss. Many wins. Many firsts, too: the first ECAC Hockey regular-season championship, first playoff series win, first league tournament title, first NCAA tournament appearance and victory, first berth in the Frozen Four, and first berth in the national title game. In its run to the national title game, the Big Red knocked off a pair of seeded teams in fourth-seeded Harvard and top-seeded Mercyhurst.
In one epic season, the Big Red women have rewritten the history books.
