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With the final weekend of the regular season at hand, the Clarkson University Women’s Hockey team will look to secure its first ever ECAC Hockey regular season title and gain home-ice advantage throughout the league playoffs. Although the Golden Knights have slipped of late, winning just once in February, they still control their own destiny.

Guided by second-year co-head coaches Shannon and Matt Desrosiers, Clarkson stands in a tie for first place in the conference standings with 30 points on a 14-4-2 ECAC Hockey record. The Green and Gold are tied with Cornell atop the conference, but the Knights own the tiebreaker over the Big Red entering the weekend with more league wins (14) than Cornell (12).

With senior captain Britney Selina (Thornhill, ONT) and senior assistant captain Carlee Eusepi (Oakville, ONT) leading the way, Clarkson is ranked fifth/sixth in the latest USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine and USCHO.com national polls with a 20-8-4 overall record.

The Knights will face a challenging task in their final games of the regular season as they host perennial powerhouses Dartmouth and Harvard at Cheel Arena. Friday’s game against the Big Green is a 7:00 p.m. faceoff and Saturday’s afternoon’s contest against the Crimson, which is also Senior Day, will start at 4:00 p.m.

Led by their six seniors, Selina, Eusepi, Genevieve Lavoie (Delson, QUE), Ashleigh Moorehead (Clinton, NY), Tegan Schroeder (Lumsden, SASK) and Dominique Thibault (L’Orignal, ONT), the Knights are on the verge of posting the best season ever in the seven-year history of the program. Clarkson’s Class of 2010 has led the Green and Gold to 78 victories over the past four years, including two 20+win campaigns, and four appearances in the ECAC Hockey playoffs, including a championship tournament showing in 2008.

After closing out January with four consecutive victories, Clarkson has gone 1-3-1 in February. This past weekend, the Knights battled on the road in two overtime games, but came away with just one point. Clarkson lost 1-0 at Princeton on Friday and rallied for a 1-1 tie at Quinnipiac on Saturday.

Thibault leads the Clarkson’s offense with 34 points, including a team-high 17 goals. Two other Knights are recording 30 points. Clarkson’s all-time leading scorer, Selina has tallied a team-high 21 assists to go along with nine goals. Selina has amassed 142 career points on 49 goals and 93 assists through 140 games. Sophomore standout Juana Baribeau (Amos, QUE) is balanced on the score sheet with 15 goals and 15 assists.

Junior Melissa Waldie (Newmarket, ONT) has 25 points (14-11) and leads the team in power-play markers with eight. Eusepi powers the offense from the blueline with 16 points (5-11) to round out Clarkson’s double figure scorers.

Junior Lauren Dahm (Baldwinsville, NY) backbones one of the nation’s stingiest defensive units. She holds a .939 save percentage, a 1.43 goals against average and is tied for the national lead in shutouts (8). Dahm boasts the best goaltending stats in ECAC Hockey play with a .960 save percentage and a 0.89 GAA through 19 league games.

Although Dartmouth has struggled this year, the Big Green have picked up their play recently and are fighting to extend their season into the playoffs. Dartmouth owns an 11-13-2 overall record and is tied for the eighth and final playoff spot with an 8-11-1 league mark. The Big Green are 4-6-2 in road games.

Harvard has overcome the loss of its starting goaltender and is surging down the stretch, winning seven of its last eight games. Ranked sixth/fifth in the national polls, the Crimson enter Friday’s game at St. Lawrence with a 17-6-4 overall record. The Crimson are tied for third in the standings with a 12-6-2 ECAC Hockey slate and are four points behind Clarkson and Cornell. Harvard is 5-3-1 on the road.