Women's Hockey Log: Ashley Cottrell Bringing Consistent Production

Ashley Cottrell has been barred from only three out of 14 scoresheets thus far in her sophomore season. Less than two weeks ago, when the laser-beamed Northeastern Huskies and their regal netminder Florence Schelling curbed everybody else, Cottrell slipped home an unassisted goal that proved ever-so-vital by the time the Friars walked off with a shootout win.

 

Providence collectively reignited last weekend, charging up nine goals and 12 assists between 11 individuals in their split series with Boston University. But even before that cathartic flare-up, Cottrell already had the swagger everyone else was pining to pick up. After all, she had participated in each of PC’s three goals in the two preceding games.

 

With a firsthand strike at Agganis Arena last Saturday and a 1-3-4 transcript on Sunday, she spiked her hot streak to a 3-5-8 showing in her last four games and morphed her season totals to 9-7-16.

 

Right along with her, the team accelerated from having scored but nine goals in their previous seven ventures to potting nine in just two swirls.

 

“It’s really refreshing to know that we’re starting to execute more and get the job done,” she said. “I think it’s just us not getting frustrated with (our past performances), working through all the hard times, and knowing that eventually things will come out in our favor.”

 

In a sense, the Friars have been in need of an intense offensive rejuvenation for the entirety of this collegiate generation, not just during these recent weeks where they went 0-3-4 with a shallow nine-goal output to speak of. All signs –namely her atypically consistent presence on the board since opening night- point to Cottrell anchoring that resurgence.

 

Consider this: with 16 points through 14 games –which makes her the lone Hockey Easterner outside of New Hampshire with a point-per-game median better than 1- she is on pace to score roughly 38 by the end of the 34-game regular season. That alone would amount to the richest single-season feat by a Skating Friar since Kristin Gigliotti put up a 17-21-38 log in 2006-07.

 

And just individually, that would be mere ice chips shy of doubling Cottrell’s 21-point performance as a rookie.

 

“My confidence last year wasn’t as high as it is this year,” she said. “I think now I’m more comfortable playing at the college level, and my teammates are helping me out a lot. We’re getting along really well and starting to get to know each other (as players) on the ice.”

 

In terms of goal output, no one in the PC program has broken 20 since Sonny Watrous (21), Karen Thatcher (25), and Rush Zimmermann (26) all did it in 2004-05. At the rate she is going, Cottrell ought to finish with at least 21 strikes, not counting anything she might muster in postseason action.

 

Already, Cottrell has surpassed the five goals she charged up in 2008-09. She has thrust 35 shots on goal and connected a rewarding 25.7 percent of the time. As a frosh, she was one of the less frequent shooters in the PC stick rack (73 SOG) and had but a 6.85 percent accuracy to speak of.

 

Lately, though, she has been a bit more like the Cottrell that PC head coach Bob Deraney saw firsthand at the inaugural U18 World Championships in 2008. That version of Cottrell balanced her goal-assist distribution for a 5-5-10 showing in five tournament games en route to gold for the Americans. She similarly concocted 56 goals and 61 helpers in her final U19 campaign with Detroit Little Caesars.

 

And now, albeit a year late, she has brought that balance to the college game.

 

“It’s something me and (Deraney) have been working on, because last year I didn’t shoot the puck as much as I should have,” she said. “I guess it’s been working out.”

 

In perking up her own twig, Cottrell has not needed to compromise any of her already-established assets either. Her playmaker persona sprung back to life on Sunday when she assisted on all three of radiant rookie and new linemate Nicole Anderson’s goals. At the dot, she has won 196 out of 356 face-offs for a passable .551 winning percentage.

 

Additionally, just as she ended the 2008-09 campaign with the best plus/minus (plus-9) amongst all PC forwards, she again leads her fellow frontliners in that department with a plus-4. (Naturally, as a whole, the Friars could stand to buck up their aggregate minus-1 rating, but that can be remedied with nothing more than a regular outpouring of offense.)

 

Cottrell and Co. will vie to build on their renewed viability tomorrow night against none other than Schelling, the league’s testiest walking, talking Shooter Tutor. Afterwards, Cottrell will take brief leave –opposite teammates Genevieve Lacasse and Amber Yung- to New Hampshire, hoping to embolden her international credentials as a Hockey East All-Star versus the U.S. Olympic squad.

 

“It’ll be a really fun chance to see how we rank up against Olympians,” she said. “It’s just a time to go out there, give them some competition, and get them ready for the Olympics.”

 

Al Daniel can be reached at hockeyscribe@hotmail.com

 

This article originally appeared in the Friartown Free Press

On Women's Hockey: Friars Reignite Offense, Halt Winless Spell

Yesterday afternoon, Leigh Riley donned formal game day attire for the 75^th time in her career, and for nearly the full breadth of her tenure with the Friars, she has accepted the role of a publicity peasant that so often comes with being a defensive specialist.

 

Her scoring transcript through 74 games: zero firsthand strikes and four helpers, none of those having fallen at any point this season.

 

Meanwhile, PC was at best tantalizing its followers having just notched a three-goal game for the first time in eight tries in Saturday’s 5-3 loss at Boston University. Prior to the weekend action, they were riding a 0-3-4 slump with a cumulative nine goals to speak of in those seven games.

 

Then, with yesterday’s match deadlocked at 1-1 in the wee stages of the second period, Riley stood unguarded along the near point, all but clamoring for a feed from Arianna Rigano. Rigano let her shipment zip out of the far corner with relative ease to Riley, who nimbly leveled a one-timer past the trapper of BU goaltender Alissa Fromkin at the 2:45 mark.

 

“It’s just nice to see her shoot the puck and not just dump it into the corner,” said head coach Bob Deraney. “It’s confidence and working hard at her game. I think that’s fruits of her labor in her three years of being committed to becoming the best player she can be, and I think she saw some results today, so I’m really happy for her.”

 

In retrospect, one could take Riley’s milestone play as the Friars’ second offensive foreshock, the first being their two-goal third period effort to at least compress the abysmal bleeding of Saturday’s loss. But a cathartic avalanche was yet to come.

 

It happened between the fifth and eighth minute of the closing frame. Only 12 ticks after Melissa Tetreau retied everything at two-apiece, Nicole Anderson restored the advantage on her second strike of the day.

 

Thirty-six additional seconds and suddenly Providence was on a power play, BU striker Jillian Kirchner having been cited for cross-checking Jean O’Neill to the right of Fromkin’s cage. Ten more seconds and the towering rookie Anderson had rounded out her first collegiate hat trick.

 

And so, in a matter of 58 seconds, the Friars had spilled a brittle 2-1 edge, only to hurriedly push ahead by two –their first multi-goal advantage since they topped Colgate, 4-1, one month ago to this date.

 

By day’s end, they were 6-2 victors, having piled on four unanswered goals to spell the difference and only requiring a modest seven shots on net to pull it off. By the time of the game’s semi-climax, the Terriers were feverishly piling a rubber blizzard on Genevieve Lacasse, only to see their shots grated to manageable morsels by the PC defense and to have the Scarborough Save-ior slow them down by summoning whistle after whistle.

 

In the latter 40 minutes yesterday, BU owned the shooting gallery, 37-15, but were outscored, 5-1, in that space. In other words, they inherited the Friars’ old skates for at least one day.

 

Uncannily, PC had run up an identical 19-7 shooting advantage in Saturday’s third period. It was the last of 12 periods during their eight-game winless hex where they charged up at least 10 registered stabs, but never scored more than one goal at a time.

 

“You don’t get instantaneous gratification,” Deraney said. “I think our kids have worked extremely hard at becoming better shooters and smarter shooters. Yesterday and today is just a dividend of how hard you have to work in front of the net, but also how smart you have to be in front of the net.”

 

Anderson ultimately personified the attacking zone street smarts better than anyone yesterday, when she connected on three of her four shots (translation: 75 percent connectivity) and, with a 3-1-4 scoring transcript, doubled her totals on the year to 6-2-8.

 

Less than five minutes after the Friars fell behind, 1-0, around the halfway mark of the first period, she cut down the near alley while linemate Ashley Cottrell toured the puck along the other lane and convinced Fromkin to nudge all the way around the far post. Parked right on the distracted Fromkin’s back porch, Anderson swatted Cottrell’s pass home for the equalizer.

 

Later, in the third, Anderson was again within brushing distance of Fromkin when she batted in another Cottrell set-up for the eventual winner. In another minute, she supplied an insurance strike –and her third power play connection on the year- simply by hovering around the near post while Cottrell and Laura Veharanta set things up on the other side and waiting to slug the puck in once it arrived.

 

“When you’ve got a young lady that size (six-foot-even), with that type of reach, you want her to be close to the net,” said Deraney. “As long as you stay off the goalie and in a good position in the slot, a big person like that is going to get a lot of terrific opportunities just from standing still because of that reach. I think she’s learning what it takes to score at this level.”

 

So, too, are countless other members of the PC Skating Sorority. In all, eight individual Friars touched yesterday’s scoresheet, with a four-point performance each for Anderson and Cottrell. And the points are being spread amongst all positions and all lines. Even Jackie Duncan, two games into her belated start after a prolonged injury, nabbed an assist on Alyse Ruff’s door-slammer with 1:18 to spare.

 

Between their two games on the weekend, the Friars lit it up nine times, matching their whole output in the previous seven games and improving their goals-per-game from a 2 to 2.29 median.

 

Not to mention, they finally polished off a regulation win and responsively salvaged their viability in the upper half of the Hockey East standings. This morning, they stand tied with Northeastern (11 points apiece) for first place.

 

“Obviously you love to win, but it really comes down to playing well,” said Deraney. “And (on Saturday), we didn’t play very well, especially in the first two periods, and then we really played well in the third. And what I’m excited about is that we put together four really good, quality periods.”

 

Al Daniel can be reached at hockeyscribe@hotmail.com

 

This article originally appeared in the Friartown Free Press

Women's Hockey Log: Bacon, Duncan Eye Return

Other than a long-suffering spectator, Jackie Duncan played the role of a freelance photographer for the first dozen games of her senior campaign with the Friars. But as one of the highlights in yesterday’s practice, where she assumed the right wing of a line with Bre Schwarz and Pam McDevitt, she earned head coach Bob Deraney’s acclaim for –as it were- getting the picture of an ideal breakout.

 

Not to mention, the likes of McDevitt and Schwarz can now cease to make mere mental pictures of having a third linemate to call their own. It is finally a reality.

 

And with Duncan as well as Kate Bacon –out the for last six games with a brief injury relapse- back in the equation, the Friars look forward to dressing the maximum limit of 18 skaters for the first time this season in today’s excursion to Boston University (2 p.m. face-off).

 

Based on the arrangements for yesterday’s on-ice seminar, Bacon will also assume a right wing position, linking up with sophomore centerpiece Ashley Cottrell and rookie leftie Nicole Anderson.

 

Jean O’Neill, who had partnered with Cottrell and Anderson for the previous four games, has now been seen working with Laura Veharanta and Jess Cohen. Cohen’s old spot on the right side with Alyse Ruff and Arianna Rigano figures to be plugged in by Abby Gauthier.

 

With the forward stable fully staffed, Deraney has reassigned the ever-flexible Lauren Covell to her original blue line firm with Leigh Riley, where she had played the first eight games before a momentary return to the front lines. The other defensive combinations of Colleen Martin with Jennifer Friedman and Christie Jensen with Amber Yung shall remain unruffled.

 

Home sweet home-and-home
This weekend’s series with BU will be the first home-and-home set the Friars have engaged in all season and their first case of facing the same adversary on back-to-back days since they swept Maine to start the year. Since then, they have confronted 10 different opposing jerseys in as many games.

Not unlike the all but forgotten notion of playing with a full bench, Deraney declared the weekend itinerary another liberating change of pace for his students.

 

“It’s nice to play the same team back-to-back,” he said. “We’ve been playing a lot of different teams on the (two) different days on the weekend, so that’s tough to do. But I think that’s also helped our team to become better hockey players. The fact that they can do that is just another reason why I’m so proud of these kids right now.”

 

Vintage Normore
Volunteer assistant coach Erin Normore, a two-way connoisseur for the breadth of her playing career and a mere eight months removed from her final college game, practiced in full gear yesterday, variously supplementing an alternate line with freshmen Emily Groth and Jessie Vella and patrolling the points for breakout and special teams’ drills.

 

At one point, upon cutting down the far alley into the visiting zone of the Schneider Arena pond, Normore attracted a feed from Groth out of the slot and one-timed it top shelf over the blocker of goaltender Christina England.

 

Animated over Agganis
Deraney, a BU alumnus, will take part in his first meaningful game at the mint-conditioned Agganis Arena, which opened in January 2005 –a good 17 years after he graduated- and hosts one select Terrier women’s game per season.

 

“I’ve been in that building and it’s a terrific building to play in,” he granted before lapsing into his habitual team-first mode of speech.

 

“I’m not excited for myself,” he added. “I’m more excited for (the players).”

 

The BU women are 1-0-1 all-time in their male counterparts’ full-time barn, having tied Maine, 1-1, two seasons ago, and thrashed the same Black Bear team, 8-1, last autumn.

 

Melissa Milestones
In Wednesday’s 4-0 cleansing of Vermont, BU senior forward Melissa Anderson inserted an insurance goal at 6:34 of the third period, granting her career point No. 103 and thus breaking 2009 alumna Gina Kearns’ program all-time record of 102.

 

Additionally, Wednesday’s upshot amounted to senior goaltender Melissa Haber’s first shutout on the season and the sixth of her career –four of which have been pasted on the Catamounts.

 

Quick feeds: The BU power play has converted at least once in nine of its first 12 ventures this season. One of the three exceptions was their 3-1 triumph over the Friars two weeks to this date…Boston sophomore Jenelle Kohanchuk, who connected twice the last time these teams squared off, is currently the WHEA’s most frequent puckslinger with 64 shots on net to her credit and stands alone atop the league scoring charts with nine goals. PC’s Cottrell and BU’s Jill Cardella are in a five-way tie for second with seven strikes apiece… Both today’s and tomorrow’s game can be heard through online audio streaming on friars.com, and Brian Schulz will drop in at Schneider Arena tomorrow, opposite 1999 Harvard alumna A.J. Mleczko, to deliver the USCHO Game of the Week.

Al Daniel can be reached at hockeyscribe@hotmail.com

 

This article originally appeared in the Friartown Free Press