Golden Knights Begin Defense of NCAA Title

Clarkson team leaders for 2014-15 (l-r): Renata Fast, Shannon MacAulay, Olivia Howe, Erin Ambrose

PDF of Game Notes

The 2014 NCAA National Champion Clarkson University Women's Hockey team begins defense of its title this weekend, opening its 12th season with a North Country, home-and-home, non-league series against archrival St. Lawrence. Guided by seventh-year head coach Matt Desrosiers and first-year assistants Megan Duggan and Britni Smith, the Golden Knights are coming off a 31-5-5 overall record, capped off by a 5-4 win over Minnesota in the title game on March 23 which delivered to the Green and Gold the University's first-ever NCAA Championship. The Knights and Saints play at Appleton Arena in Canton on Friday night and then faceoff at Cheel Arena on Saturday afternoon.

Can't make it to the game? Follow the Golden Knights over the Internet at
Clarkson Hockey Broadcast Central or Clarkson Athletics on your mobile device
with live video, internet radio broadcast and live in-game scoring.

•	USCHO.com Poll
•	USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine Poll

•	Prior to Saturday's game Clarkson will hold a ceremony celebrating the raising of the NCAA Championship banner to the Cheel rafters. The Knights will be presented their NCAA Championship rings after the game.
•	Clarkson is 7-3-1 in its past 11 official season-openers and 8-2-1 in its home openers at Cheel. The Knights are 2-0 in their past two season-openers and are on a 3-0 streak in home-openers. last year Clarkson opened the 2013-14 campaign with a 12-1 win over RIT at Cheel on Sept. 28.
•	Junior Shannon MacAulay will serve as Clarkson's Captain in 2014-15 and classmates Erin Ambrose, Renata Fast and Olivia Howe will act as Assistant Captains
•	The Knights return 14 letterwinners who played key roles in the championship-winning season and have brought in six newcomers to help replace the loss of the graduated veterans.
•	Clarkson will look to overcome the graduation loss of the talented seven-member Class of 2014, which featured the NCAA Player of the Year, three 100-point scorers, a combined 551 (214-337) career points and the program's all-time winningest goaltender.
•	Junior defender Erin Ambrose, a Top 10 Patty Kazmaier Award finalist and a 2014 first-team All-America, is Clarkson's top returning scorer. She led Division I in scoring from the blueline last year with 50 points (7 more than any other defender in the country) and was second among all players in the nation for assists per game with 35.
•	Ambrose along with classmates Renata Fast and Shannon MacAulay joined Erica Howe '14 and Jamie Lee Rattray '14 as participants at Canada's National Women's Team Fall Festival last week.
•	St. Lawrence leads the all-time series by a two-game margin, 14-16-4, but Clarkson has enjoyed the better of the rivalry recently, with a four-game win streak and a 7-1-1 mark over the past nine games. The Knights are 6-0-2 against the Saints in the last eight games in Potsdam. Clarkson won all four games last year, outscoring their rivals 18-3, including a pair of SHOs in their last two meetings. SLU's last win over Clarkson was on 2/2/13 (3-2) and its last win at Cheel was on 2/27/10 (2-1). Clarkson is 10-3-3 all-time in Potsdam against SLU.

Print Friendly Version