D É J À V U Women capture title for second year in a row

Author: James Kerrigan

For the second straight season, the Middlebury women's hockey team captured the NESCAC title with a victory over Bowdoin. Where the Panthers emerged from the Championship game with a 5-1 victory last year, they improved on the margin of victory this time around, winning 8-2 last Sunday. A day earlier, the Panthers advanced to the finals after they squeezed by the Mules from Colby with a hard-fought 3-1 victory.

The Mules rode a hot goalie on Saturday as she managed to reject 45 of 48 Panther shots on goal. But the offense failed to generate enough quality chances to beat the top ranked Middlebury squad. According to coach Mandigo, Colby had "an excellent goalie and they packed players in front of the net to clog up the middle."

This proved to be an extremely effective strategy as the Panthers found themselves firing slap-shot after slap-shot into a crowded goal area hoping for one to sneak through. While never looking likely to beat the Panthers, the Mules executed a plan designed to prevent Middlebury from scoring, with the hope of sneaking in a goal of their own. Their strategy worked for the first two periods as the teams went into the locker room scoreless during the second break.

Conditioning, persistence and greater technical ability finally paid off as Annmarie Cellino '09 banged home a rebound off Emily Quizon's '06 shot from the right side. Coach Mandigo's women finally broke the scoreless deadlock at 8:21 of the third period, but just as a palpable sigh of relief swept around the arena, the game was deadlocked once again. Just 14 seconds after NESCAC Rookie of the Year, Cellino opened the scoring, the Polar Bears evened up the score with a one-timer off the stick of Colby's own first-year, Rebecca Julian.

But that would be as close as they got as the Panther's greater desire proved decisive as the third period wore on. With just over eight minutes remaining, Erika Nakamura '09 screened the Colby keeper and managed to get a stick on the Tania Kenney's '08 shot from outside. After two goals from first-year players, Quizon finished the Mules off with a diving effort. She returned to her feet to celebrate, confident that she had led her team back to the NESCAC finals.

The championship match was supposed to be more difficult, but the Panthers attacked from the first face-off and skated off with an 8-2 win. "Survive and advance" - a popular March Madness mentality - does not as easily apply to the NESCAC women's tournament. The Panthers didn't merely survive, they prospered.

In a dominating team win, two of the Panthers stood out on the Sunday showdown. Three thousand miles, four years and seven inches separate first-year players Cellino and Quizon, but their performances this year have been equally impressive. In Sunday's championship bout, Quizon and Cellino each tallied three goals, which proved to be more than enough to pace the Panthers.

Quizon '06 wasted no time in completing her hat trick - she scored three unanswered goals all in the first period. Cellino's hat trick, although not of the natural variety (three straight goals), was equally impressive. Erika Nakamura '09 and Abby Kurtz-Phelan '07 also contributed a goal a piece while Shannon Tarrant '07 added two helpers.

Particularly impressive was the clinical nature with which the two players combined to carve up the Bowdoin rearguard. On a number of occasions, Quizon brought the crowd to its feet by flying in on Bowdoin goaltender Emileigh Mercer and producing one of her trademark dekes, leaving Mercer stranded, before sliding the puck past the helpless stopper.

Cellino, a gifted player in her own right, is learning from the best as she produced a carbon copy of Quizon's move to bring up one of her own goals, before selling the goaltender on another, only to push the puck into the far corner. With Quizon sure to be remembered as one of the greatest players in Middlebury women's hockey history, it appears that her heiress has been found, and that her prolific goal-scoring duties look to be in safe hands.

With just a matter of seconds remaining in the game, Bowdoin added a consolation goal to make it 8-2, but it was far too little, way too late. Coach Mandigo cited Middlebury's ability to find the back of the net so frequently as well as "Bowdoin's wide-open style" as main reasons for the victory. Nevertheless, the Panthers won decisively and captured their second straight NESCAC title. With the win, they earned a bid into the NCAA tournament. They will host Manhattanville in the quarterfinal game on Friday night at 7 p.m.