Milton, MA – The Curry Women's Ice Hockey team will be taking on the Western New England Golden Bears on Saturday in the CCC Championship Game. The Colonels enter the game with a 11-11-5 record on the season, and are undefeated in their last five games. The Golden Bears sit at 16-7-3 on the season.
The Colonels were the final team to make the playoffs, qualifying as the five seed, while WNE finished second in the regular season. The Colonels path to the championship game included a 3-0 win over the #4 seed Salve Regina, and then a 1-0 win over #1 seed Endicott. The Golden Bears defeated #3 seed University of New England to clinch their spot in the championship game.
The two teams met three times this season. In the first meeting on November 16th at WNE, the two teams played to a 1-1 tie, with Curry winning the shootout. Two days later the Golden Bears came to Curry and won 4-0. In the third meeting on February 10th, again at WNE, the two teams played to another tie, this time 2-2. Just like in the first game, the Colonels would win the shootout.
The key matchup of the game is the goalies, as Soleil Archambeault and Rieley Jessie-Gerelli are arguably the two best goalies in the conference. Archambeault has the third best goals against average in the conference at 1.55, but made 100 more shots than either of the two in front of her. One of those two is Jessie-Gerelli, who has a GAA of 1.48. Ultimately it might be which goalie that blinks first that decides the game.
Firing the shots at the two goalies will be some of the best goal scorers in the CCC. For Curry, Danielle Reid (13 goals), Grayson Goolgasian (12 goals), and Hannah Berkowitz (10 goals), all rank in the top eight in the CCC. For the Golden Bears, they boast the second leading goal scorer in the CCC in Maddie Pope (13 goals). The Golden Bears also have the leading point getter in the conference in Alyssa Murphy, who had a league high 20 assists to go with 10 goals for 30 points.
The game will take place at the Olympia Ice Center in West Springfield, with the puck being dropped at 7pm.
