No. 4/4 QU Women's Ice Hockey Hosts Yale, Brown to Open 2016 Calendar Year

Friday, January 1

Hamden, Conn.

7:00 PM

Quinnipiac University

Yale University

No. 4/4 QU Women's Ice Hockey Hosts Yale, Brown to Open 2016 Calendar Year

12/30/2015 2:55:00 PM | Women's Ice Hockey

By: QU Sports Information

No. 4/4 Quinnipiac University Bobcats (14-1-3, 7-1-2 ECAC Hockey) vs.
Yale University Bulldogs (4-8-1, 3-2-1 ECAC Hockey)
Date: Jan. 1, 2016
Time: 7 P.M.
Location: High Point Solutions Arena - Hamden, Conn.
All-Time Series vs. Yale: 13-15-6
Last Meeting: W, 3-0 (Nov. 28, 2015 in New Haven, Conn.)

No. 4/4 Quinnipiac University Bobcats (14-1-3, 7-1-2 ECAC Hockey) vs.
Brown University Bears (3-9-0, 1-5-0 ECAC Hockey)
Date: Jan. 2, 2016
Time: 4 P.M.
Location: High Point Solutions Arena - Hamden, Conn.
All-Time Series vs. Brown: 14-6-3
Last Meeting: W, 4-0 (Oct. 30, 2015 in Providence, R.I.

Follow the Bobcats:
FREE Live Video vs. Y ale (Jan. 1)
FREE Live Video vs. Brown (Jan. 2)
Live Stats vs. Yale (Jan. 1)
Live Stats vs. Brown (Jan. 2)
Twitter: @QU_WIH

Game Notes
Quinnipiac | Yale | Brown

Welcome to 2016
The nationally-ranked No. 4/4 Quinnipiac women's ice hockey team is one of the first team's to get back into action in the new calendar year as the Yale Bulldogs travel down Whitney Ave. to face the Bobcats on Jan. 1 for a New Year's Day showdown before the Brown Bears come to town on Saturday, Jan. 2 for the second game of the new year.

All-Time Against Yale
The Quinnipiac women's ice hockey team has enjoyed recent success against the Yale Bulldogs, going 7-4-1 in the last 12 matchups, and have scored at least three goals in all three matchups this season. So far this season, the Bobcats are 2-1-0 against the Bulldogs after defeating Yale in the Nutmeg Classic Championship game for the Bobcats sixth Nutmeg Classic Title. The Bobcats have outscored the Bulldogs 12-7 in their three matchups this season as they head into their fourth game against one another.

Scouting the Bulldogs
Yale heads into the first weekend of the 2016 calendar year with a 4-8-1 record and 3-2-1 mark in ECAC Hockey play. Yale has won three of its last five games, but lost their final game of the 2015 calendar year to New Hampshire on Dec. 13, 5-2. Prior to their loss against the Wildcats, Yale had won two straight games over Rensselaer and Union to move above .500 in league play. Eden Murray and Mallory Souliotis are tied for the team lead with 13 points as Murray has four goals and nine assists while Souliotis leads the Bulldogs with 10 assists. Phoebe Stanez and Janelle Ferrara are both tied for the team lead in goals with six. Staenz has also added four assists to give her 10 points, tied for third on the team with Jordan Chancellor. Souliotis is the top blue-liner for the Bulldogs, with the next closest defenseman being Taylor Marchin with five assists. Hanna Mandl has struggled in goal for Yale all season, going 4-8-1 with a 3.40 GAA and .881 save percentage. Special teams have been a disadvantage for the Bulldogs this season, scoring just five power play goals in 35 chances for 14.3 percent while the penalty kill has allowed 10 goals, kill off just 27 for 73 percent.

All-Time Against Brown
Throughout the Quinnipiac women's ice hockey team's history, the Bobcats have been very successful against the Brown Bears, posting a 14-6-3 record, including an eight-game winning streak and 13-game unbeaten streak against the Bears. The Bobcats have been particularly successful in the past eight seasons as they are unbeaten with an 11-0-2 record since their Nov. 6, 2009 meeting. Over the Bobcats eight game-winning streak, Quinnipiac is outscoring Brown 28-1 while they are outscoring the Bears 37-4 over the past 13 meetings.

Scouting the Bears
Through the first half of the season, the Bears went 3-9-0 and picked up a 1-5-0 mark in ECAC Hockey play, with their lone conference win coming against Union. Non-conference wins for the Bears came against Sacred Heart and RIT as they snapped a six-game losing streak to open up the season, trading wins and losses over the last six games heading into this weekend. Sam Donovan leads the Bears with five goals and is tied for the team lead with six points, tied with Bridget Carey and Maddie Woo. Carey has two goals and four assists while Wood has tallied a team-leading five assists. Defenseman Leah Olson is the only other Bear to record five or more points as she has two goals and three assists on the season. Monica Elvin and Julianne Landry have started to share time in net for the Bears, with Elvin playing seven games and Landry playing in six. Elvin is 1-6-0 with a 3.40 GAA and .903 save percentage while Landry is 2-3-0 with one shutout, a 2.57 GAA and .920 save percentage. The Bears have scored seven power play goals in 55 chances for a 12.7 percent power play while the penalty kill comes into the weekend at just 76.7 percent, killing off 33 of 43 penalties.

Multimedia
This Bobcats 2016 calendar opening weekend will feature both games streamed live on QuinnipiacBobcats.com through the Bobcats All-Access page, free of charge. Free live stats will also be available by going to QuinnipiacBobcats.com and clicking on the live stats link in the schedule. Fans can also follow the action on Twitter all season long by following the team's Twitter account, @QU_WIH.

Bobcats in the Polls
For the 12th consecutive week this season, the Quinnipiac women's ice hockey team was ranked in the top 10 of both the USCHO.com Division I Women's Poll and the USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine Poll, ranking fourth for the third consecutive week. The Bobcats have been ranked in the top 10 of the USCHO.com Poll for 57 consecutive weeks. In this week's poll, Quinnipiac is one of just two schools to have both their men's and women's ice hockey teams ranked in the top four of the USCHO.com Division I Women's Poll and the USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine College Hockey Poll, joining Boston College as the only other school.

Bobcats in the Pairwise
The Bobcats continued to hang out as one of the top teams in the country as they remain No. 4 in the PairWise Rankings, trailing Boston College, Wisconsin and Minnesota. The Bobcats are the highest ranked ECAC Hockey team followed by Clarkson (No. 5), Princeton (T-No. 6), Harvard (T-No. 10), Colgate (T-No. 10), Cornell (No. 12), and St. Lawrence (T-No. 13). The USCHO.com Pairwise Ranking attempts to mimic the method used by the NCAA Selection Committee to determine participants for the NCAA Division I women's hockey tournament.

Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue
Taylar Cianfarano's prolific sophomore season has resulted in her selection to the USA Hockey Winter Women's Training Camp in Blaine, Minnesota which began on Dec. 27 and runs through Jan. 1. The Bobcats' freshman also joins former teammate and current NWHL All-Star Shiann Darkangelo at the camp.

The Amanda Show
Cianfarano is not the only one making news with a national program as assistant coach Amanda Mazzotta will join the Canadian Women's National Development Team at the Nations Cup in Fussen, Germany from Jan. 4-7. Mazzotta is the goaltending coach for the 2015-16 season.

UJ Is Here to Stay
Mazzotta's team will face-off against former Quinnipiac women's hockey player Erica Uden Johansson, and the Sweden National Team at the Nations Cup in Germany. Uden Johansson is currently the team-leader with four goals and four points through eight games of this national team season.

Silver Streak
The Bobcats have been streaking for quite a while now, having not lost since Halloween and are currently on an eight-game winning streak and 11 game-unbeaten streak. The Bobcats' winning streak is tied for the longest in program history, which they set during the first half of the 2014-15 season. Over the winning streak, the Bobcats have outscored their opponents 31-4 with five shutouts in the streak. The 11-game unbeaten streak is the second longest unbeaten streak in program history, shy of last season's 16-game unbeaten streak which spanned almost the entire first half of the 2014-15 season.

December to Remember
Despite playing only three games in December, the Bobcats outscored opponents 15-2 and averaged five goals per game. The Bobcats scored seven goals on Dartmouth in the final ECAC Hockey weekend of the first half before picking up their first win over Harvard since 2010, a 2-1 thriller in overtime. The Bobcats then poured on six goals against the New Hampshire Wildcats in a 6-0 shutout.

LighTTning McQueen
After recording her fourth three-point game of the season on Dec. 11 against New Hampshire, Taylar Cianfarano tied her freshman year offensive totals with 17 goals, 13 assists and 30 points just 18 games into the season. Cianfarano has scored multiple points in four straight games for the Bobcats and six of the last seven. Currently, Cianfarano is leading all ECAC Hockey skaters with 17 goals and is tied for the league-lead with 30 points, while her 13 assists are tied for second. Nationally, Cianfarano has the fifth most goals and is tied for eighth in points.

Points are Forever
Nicole Connery also put up a three-point night for the Bobcats against the Bulldogs, the fourth time in her career she has posted a three-point night. Connery also led the Bobcats with two goals, the fifth time in her career she has scored multiple goals in a game. Her impressive performance vaulted her into third on the team with five goals and fourth on the team with 10 assists and 15 points.

The Help-ers
With a pair of assists, Emma Woods kept pace with Cianfarano for the most assists on the team and second most in the conference at 13. Woods is currently riding a four-game point streak, tied with Cianfarano for the longest active point streak on the team. Woods has also tallied a point in seven of the last eight games for the Bobcats.

"Brown"-Eyed Girl
Nicole Brown netted her third goal of the season and picked up her seventh assist with a multiple-point game for the Bobcats against the Wildcats. Brown's multiple-point game was her third of the season and fifth of her career. Brown has now recorded at least 10 points in a season in all four seasons of her career at Quinnipiac.

Kosta Rica
Adding to the Bobcats' offensive output, Nicole Kosta recorded a multiple-point game of her own with one goal and one assist as she scored her seventh goal of the season, third on the team behind Cianfarano and Melissa Samoskevich. Kosta's multiple-point outing was her third of the season and first since Nov. 7 against Cornell.

Sydney White
It didn't take much for Sydney Rossman to pick up her ECAC Hockey-leading seventh shutout of the season as Rossman needed just seven saves in the game, with the Bobcats' defense stifling the Wildcats' offense. Rossman's victory was also her 14th of the season, good for the league lead. Rossman also leads ECAC Hockey with a microscopic 1.04 GAA and is fourth in the league with a .941 save percentage.

The West Wing
Lindsey West got the scoring party started against the Wildcats with her first goal of the season just 3:56 into the game. West has now scored at least one goal in each of her last three seasons. After picking up the goal, West now has three points on the season

Taryn It Up
With one assist against the Wildcats, Baumgardt set a new single-season career-high with seven assists to go along with her new single-season career-high nine points. The Bobcats' defenseman needs just one more goal to set a new career-high in goals scored in a single season. Baumgardt is second among the team's defenseman with nine points while her seven assists are tied for the most among the d-core. She is also second on the team with 16 blocked shots.

The Flash
Alicia Barry picked up her second assist of the season and fourth of her career against New Hampshire en route to Quinnipiac's 6-0 win. Barry's first assist came against Clarkson on Nov. 20 and has now tied her single-season career-high after recording two assists as a freshman in 2014-15.

Into the Wild
Kristen Tamberg was the fourth member of the Bobcats defenseman to record a point against New Hampshire as she tallied her sixth assist of the season to give her seven points. Tamberg has scored three points over the past three games. Tamberg's six points are tied for the second most she's recorded in a season, only trailing last season's 13 assist performance.