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The Yale women’s hockey team (23–1–1, 16–1–1 ECAC) continued their road game perfection this season with two more wins at Union College (11–18–1, 4–13–1 ECAC) and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (9–20–1, 4–13–1 ECAC).

The No. 2 ranked Bulldogs took care of business on their weekend road trip to New York that saw them face off against two of the bottom three teams in the ECAC. The Bulldogs themselves currently sit atop the ECAC, holding a 5 point lead over rivals Colgate (24–4–2, 14–3–1 ECAC) who are in second place with 44.5 points in the season. 

“We want to set ourselves up to have a successful post season which means winning the ECAC and maintaining home ice advantage for the entirety of the playoffs and potentially the first round of the NCAA tournament,” forward Claire Dalton ’23 said.

The weekend started out hot for the Elis as they visited Schenectady, New York to play Union and scored less than three minutes into the game when Charlotte Welch ’23 buried her first of many for the night. 

The Bulldogs took off from there, continuing to fill the Union net all night. Once the dust settled on the night, Yale emerged with a dominant 10–1 win, holding a 46–15 advantage in shots. 

The disparity in shots for each team shows the completeness of this Bulldogs team, with head coach Matt Bolding getting his team to play a full 200-foot game from net to net. 

“Everyone on the team plays equally hard on both sides of the puck which (in my opinion) has been our main advantage this year — we care the same about a goal as we do a good d-zone play,” Welch told the News. “As fatigue grows with school, hopefully we can keep up, our strength coach has been great about getting us in good enough shape to last through the end.”

For Welch, the goals kept coming on Friday as she finished the game with her second career hat trick. However, Welch wasn’t alone in putting hats on the ice for the Bulldogs, as teammate Jordan Ray ’26 also posted a hat trick. 

The two hat tricks paced the Bulldogs double-digit goal performance in Yale’s highest scoring game since the 2014-15 season. 

Despite a tighter score of 4–2, the Saturday night visit to Troy, New York against RPI was a similarly dominant Yale performance, with the Bulldogs holding a 45–19 advantage in shots.

The win pushed the Bulldogs win streak to 15 games, with Elle Hartje ’24 pacing the team as she has for much of the year. 

Hartje extended her point streak to 11 games with a goal and an assist to help the team past RPI. Hartje has followed her impressive sophomore campaign up with a stellar junior year, ranking 15th in the country in points per game and ninth in assists per game at 0.96.

While Hartje came into the season as a player to watch, she has been quick to point out the large roles her younger teammates have played in the team’s stellar season.

“There is always a lot of pressure in transitioning from youth hockey to collegiate, and making such a statement will only help them gain experience and confidence,” Hartje said to the News earlier in the season. “I would just say to keep playing their games and working hard. If they do that, further success is inevitable since they are so talented and skilled.”

First-year players Ray and Carina DiAntonia ’26 both rank in the top five on the Yale team in points this season, while Hartje herself leads the team with 33 points.

The Bulldogs will return to New York next weekend for their final two away games of the regular season against Colgate and Cornell.

SPENCER KING
Spencer King is a former Editor for the Sports desk. Currently he covers football for the News. He has also previously covered the Yale men's lacrosse team, women's hockey team and most things Bulldogs sports. Spencer is a senior in Davenport College and is majoring in Political Science.