Courtesy of Brian Beard

The women’s hockey team (2–2–0; 1–1–0 NESCAC) went 1–1 at the Codfish Bowl last weekend, with a 2–1 overtime win against Nazareth College (6–1–0) and a 4–1 non-conference loss to Colby College (3–0–0; 0–0–0 NESCAC) in the tournament final. The team is using its loss to Colby as motivation for its highly-anticipated home conference match versus the Mules tonight at Sidney J. Watson Arena.

Against Nazareth, Bowdoin took an early lead when defender Emma Merrill ’26 scored her first collegiate goal seven minutes into the first period.

“The puck popped out in the slot, and I didn’t know when it went in at first,” Merrill said. “Then my teammates celebrated so I knew it went in. It’s really cool to score in the first few weeks of the season.”

Nazareth tied the game in the third period, and Sara Ito-Bagshaw ’26 scored the go-ahead goal in overtime. Forward Gia Massari ’25 assisted on both goals.

“I was most proud of our grit,” captain Dani Marquez ’22 said. “Three on three overtime can be pretty hectic because it’s something that’s a new implementation into Division III college hockey. I thought that we really just bore down and played our game and stuck to what we knew and then we were able to come out on top, which was exciting.”

Against Colby, forward Anyi Sun ’26 scored Bowdoin’s lone goal and goaltender Meaghan Miranda ’23 made 36 saves.

The players reflected on the tournament and are hoping to learn from their performances.

“We talked about the mistakes we made.… I think everyone else does a good job of [fixing their mistakes]. Between periods, everyone always comes together and talks about other things that we could do better,” Massari said.

Bowdoin wants to focus on puck possession. The Polar Bears were outshot 40–29 by the Mules.

“We talked a lot about it as a team, but I think possessing the puck and really controlling it as a unit rather than a single person [is] something that we had a hard time with. Especially when competing against Colby, because they’re a really fast team,” Ito-Bagshaw said.

Marquez added that, despite the result, the team has a lot of positive takeaways from Sunday.

“I don’t think anything necessarily fell short. I think at the end of the day, pucks didn’t bounce our way. Towards the end of the game, we really took control and really proved that we have the skills to dominate them,” Marquez said. “I think that going into this weekend, we really just need to channel that energy that we had at the end of the game and come out a little bit more prepared to battle hard against them.”

Marquez believes the team’s ambition and hunger that was present at the tournament will set them up for a successful season.

“We came into the weekend with a lot of fire and tenacity, which was really awesome to see. It’s a really exciting time playing in a tournament and something that we don’t get to do very often,” Marquez said.

Looking ahead to tonight, the team is more motivated than ever.

“We’re still going to compete no matter what. We’ll probably come out even harder [than last weekend]….  We were with them. We can compete. We know we can beat them. With always wanting to beat Colby in general, and the fact that the Friday game is home, we’ll hopefully have a lot of fans.… I think we all feel pretty good about [tonight],” Massari said.

The Polar Bears will take on the Mules tonight at 7 p.m. at Sidney J. Watson Arena. There will be food trucks outside the arena, and the first 300 students will receive a free Bowdoin beanie hat.