Courtesy of Brian Beard

The women’s hockey team (13–2–0; 7–1–0 NESCAC) split its two conference games with the Middlebury College Panthers (13–2–1; 7–2–1 NESCAC) this past weekend in Vermont. After falling on Friday night 2–0, the Polar Bears took control of the second game, winning 2–1.

Middlebury came out firing in the first period of Friday’s game, getting 15 shots off to Bowdoin’s three in the first 20 minutes of play. Goaltender Sarah Peterson ’27 stopped all the pucks, keeping the Polar Bears in the game.

Despite the shot deficit, forward Gia Massari ’25 felt positive going into the second period with a 0–0 game thanks to Peterson’s stops in goal and the team’s ability to shut down Middlebury’s power play.

“On the penalty kill, I think our goalie, [Peterson], stands on her head a lot, too,” Massari said. “Our penalty kill is just communicating and being able to shut them down, which also gives us a lot of momentum for when the penalty is over.”

Halfway through the second period, the Panthers found the back of the net to take the lead 1–0. A Middlebury screen kept Peterson in the center of the net as the puck went into the left side of the goal. Four minutes later, Middlebury capitalized on a Bowdoin penalty by scoring a power play goal to put them up 2–0.

Going into the second game of the weekend, defenseman Emma Merrill ’26 was excited to come back strong against a tough opponent like Middlebury.
“The first game we played scared to lose,” Merrill said. “Going against a tougher opponent, we were kind of nervous of what they were going to bring. I think in the second game, we came out ready to show how our team plays.”

In the last minute of a hard-fought first period on Saturday, Massari took a shot that ricocheted off the Panther goalie’s pad right to Meghan Britt ’28, who tucked the puck in the net to put the Bears up 1–0.

“[The puck] bounced to me, and then I saw both of the Meghans [Britt and Montanero ’27] on our team going to the net,” Massari said. “I’m just a big fan of rebound shooting, because I don’t really consider myself a snipper, so I just put it in [towards the net] and [Britt] grabbed it.”

With five minutes left in the second period, Middlebury tied the game on a power play goal that passed by Peterson into the upper net.

But the Polar Bears weren’t ready to settle for a tie. Less than four minutes into the third period, the team found itself with a power play. With a series of screens, Luna Lu ’27 got the puck over to Merrill, who took a shot from the top of the zone. The puck soared past the Middlebury goalie for the go-ahead goal, putting the College up 2–1.

“If I’m being completely honest, I looked up, and I saw two people in front of me,” Merrill said. “I honestly hesitated. I didn’t know whether to move [the puck] or not, so I just shot it on net, because I saw a lot of congestion in the middle, hoping it would hit something and go in. I’m not a big shooter, so that was a big surprise.”

Massari was also pleased that the team got the second and eventual game-winning goal.

“[The goal] was nice because on Friday, our unit struggled, and then on Saturday, we were a lot calmer and better at puck movement,” Massari said. “[I] just watched the puck go in from the dot—it was awesome.”

With eight games left in the regular season, the Polar Bears are looking to use Saturday’s win as momentum while also continuing to improve on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ice.

The team returns to away play tonight at 7 p.m. at Amherst College (12–3–1; 5–2–0 NESCAC).

“Early in the season, our coach said, ‘It’s nice to be a team where you can win a game but still learn a lot from it,’” Massari said. “I think the fact that we did defend [Middlebury] well enough to win was good, but also we can learn from watching the film how to strengthen our defensive zone and get more offense.”