The women’s ice hockey team had an eye-widening opening weekend.

Though the Bulldogs dropped their first two games of the season, they gained invaluable perspective in the process.

“We now know what we have to do,” Erika Hockinson ’04 said. “We got a good sense of where we need to be.”

Yale (0-2) lost its opener Friday to Wayne State (2-2), 4-1.

The Bulldogs played a hard, but scoreless first period.

Then, the Warriors pulled away in the second period with three goals. Melissa Wenzel made it 2-0 at 3:55 when she picked up the rebound of Krissy Langley’s shot and beat goalie Nicolette Franck ’04. Langley tallied another assist three minutes later when Emily McGrath-Agg poked in Langley’s pass. The Warriors capped off their scoring at 7:33 with Heidi Burns’ team-leading second goal of the season.

Sarah Love ’06, who was inserted into the goal midway through the second period to stop the bleeding, shut down the Warriors for the remainder of the game, recording 11 saves.

Deanna McDevitt ’03 scored the lone Yale goal of the evening, and the weekend. On a five-on-four power play at 13:40 in the third period, McDevitt’s slap shot from the right side ruined Anna VanderMarliere’s bid for a shutout.

“The first period was just nerves, and we lacked intensity in the second,” Nicole Symington ’05 said. “We played really solidly in the third.”

Yale returned to the ice Sunday to face off against Ohio’s University of Findlay (4-3). Like the Warriors, the Oilers broke out with three goals in the second period and went on to blank the Bulldogs, 5-0.

“Our penalty kill was not very good and neither were our face-offs,” Symington said. “But those are two little things that can be corrected this week.”

With last year’s success against the Warriors, the Bulldogs hoped to come out of their opening weekend with at least one win. But they are not disappointed with their performance.

“We played 40 minutes of solid hockey,” Hockinson said. “We just have to be able to do that for 120 minutes.”

Last weekend, the Elis had a glimpse of a very promising future. The team’s freshmen pack, led by Nicole Babony ’06, Deena Caplette ’06 and Love, played spectacularly in their debut.

“The freshmen bring a lot of intensity and a new attitude to the locker room, and as a group they are excellent,” Symington said.

Yale hosts Cornell and Colgate this weekend at Ingalls Rink.