W. Hockey club wins 3 in a row

A year ago, the Penn women's hockey team began a rebuilding process following a frightful 0-10 season. Coach Scott Armstrong installed a defense-oriented game plan, resulting in a 5-7 mark last season. Then Nov. 5 and 6, the Quakers terrorized two experienced Boston squads -- MIT and Connecticut, 6-2 and 6-1, respectively. And Saturday, Penn extended this season's perfect record to 3-0 with an impressive 10-1 spanking of the Worminster Glaciers. This year, the Quakers have already accumulated a total of 22 goals, while the stifling defense has held their opponents to only four. "Last year we lost four or five games by one goal?I don't think our offense played as well," Armstrong said. Saturday morning, the slaughter was sparked early in the first period with a goal by Nicole DeLisle, the first of her career. The Quakers scored throughout the game in front of a boisterous crowd of parents, students and die-hard hockey fans. The defensive tone of the game was set early by the stellar play of freshman goalie Lisa Bard. With four minutes, eight seconds remaining in the first period, and the Quakers up 2-0, the Glaciers flipped a shot into a seemingly wide-open corner of the net on a breakaway. Bard deftly snatched the puck out of the air, preserving the two-goal lead. Except for a breakdown during a line change in the second period, the Penn defense shut down the Glaciers, anchored by co-captains Ari Schoen and Molly Wagman, allowing only eight shots on goal. "We played very good positioning-wise, very good discipline and executed very well on everything we'd been practicing," Armstrong said. Scoring was abundant throughout the game. The Quakers had 29 shots. The offense was led by Bobbi Adams (three goals) and Robin Leone (two goals). Even the defense got in on the scoring as Schoen chipped in two more goals, earning her the game puck. The helplessness felt by the Glaciers was displayed toward the end, as goal after goal found its way into the back of the net. "Their frustration was evident in the second period when they started to bunch up. That's a sign of an inexperienced team," assistant coach Brandon Power said. "They had a tendency to abandon their assigned positions. This created several scoring opportunities for us." "It was very easy for our defense to get shots off because they didn't cover the point," Schoen said. Penn's next game will be at home Saturday against the Chesapeake Bay Lightning, which the Quakers swept last year, 4-0 and 7-1.