On Tuesday evening, the women’s hockey team, currently ranked last in the ECAC, was on its way to a match against Brown in Providence, R.I., and to what would be its twentieth loss of the season. Then head coach Joakim Flygh received an urgent phone call and the bus postponed its journey to drop him off at a train station.

Flygh’s wife had just gone into labor.

Flygh would miss the game in order to support his wife, Angela Flygh, a former ice hockey player for Harvard, and soon-to-be first child.

But the excitement of the bus ride over did not continue onto the ice. With or without its coach, the team’s results followed a familiar pattern as it suffered its 14th consecutive loss.

For the second time in three weeks, Brown (7–7–7, 4–6–4 ECAC) bested the Bulldogs (1–20–0, 1–13–0 ECAC) by a score of 4–1. The Bulldogs last played Brown at Ingalls Rink on Jan. 4 – with the exact same result.

Yale finished a series of three away, conference games last night and will return to Ingalls this weekend to take on Harvard and Dartmouth. The Elis go into these matches with only one win under their belts.

“It was another disappointing loss,” defender Heather Grant ’12 said. “However, I think we are starting to play better collectively. We really gave it to Brown in the first period and for parts of the third.”

Outshooting Brown 13–11, Yale played a strong first period. The Bears did not get a shot on goalie Genny Ladiges ’12 until nearly four minutes into the game, by which time Yale had four shots on Brown. But despite the early discrepancy in shots on goal, the Bears managed to score first, at 8:24.

Forward Lauren Davis ’12 said each game produces more scoring opportunities for the Bulldogs, but she added that the team needs to start capitalizing on those occasions if it is going to start winning games.

The Bulldogs could not even the score in the remainder of the first period and went into the second down 1–0. And unfortunately for the Bulldogs, the first period was high point.

Forward Paige Decker ’14 said the team “really struggled” in the second period, during which the Bears outshot the Blue and White 25–9. Ladiges stopped 24 of those shots, but Brown slipped one past her on a power play at 12:48. Yale managed to pick up its game at the end of the second period, scoring with less than one minute remaining to finish the period down 2–1.

But the Bulldogs fell further behind in the third period. The Bears kicked off scoring for the period at 7:35 and added to this run on a power play at 14:58. Yale could not close the three-goal gap in the remainder of the game.

Overall, Ladiges made 41 saves, but Yale was outshot 45–25. In their last game against Brown, the Bulldogs were outshot by a smaller margin, 30–26, but the game still ended with the same score.

“We’re devoting the rest of the season to our senior players,” forward Danielle Moncion ’13 said. “They have done so much for the program, and they deserve our best effort every shift.”

There are eight more conference games left before the conference playoffs.

Despite the team’s losing streak, Decker said, the Bulldogs are excited for their upcoming rivalry matches. This weekend’s matches against Harvard and Dartmouth will take place at Ingalls Rink at 7 p.m. Friday and 4 p.m. Saturday.

On the return trip from the game, there were no phone calls that derailled the trip, but the team watched Ridley Scott’s film “Gladiator.” for motivation.