Dominique Lozzi '12 does her best when she is with her best friends. And now, thanks to her, all of them are once again fighting for the NESCAC women's hockey championship.
In last weekend's come-from-behind 2-1 win against No. 5-seeded Connecticut College in the NESCAC quarterfinals, Lozzi scored both of No. 4-seeded Bowdoin's goals. The Polar Bears will now play top-seeded Middlebury on Saturday at 1 p.m. in the semifinals.
After her performance, Lozzi was named the NESCAC Player of the Week.
Currently tied for eighth in the conference and second on the team, Lozzi is averaging .88 points per game. She has a total of 22 points this season, and now has a total of 68 points in 74 career games.
Lozzi started playing hockey in kindergarten and, throughout her childhood, played with her twin brother Mike whenever they got the chance.
"We did a Learn to Skate program early on, and played together until high school," she said.
Her first year of high school, Lozzi played on both a club boy's team and her school's girl's team. The year after, however, she switched over to girls club and school teams, although she continued practicing with Mike on his club team.
When looking at colleges, Lozzi focused mainly on NESCAC schools.
"I didn't really consider Bowdoin much," she said, "until I talked to the coach. I applied here early and got in, and my first year we got the sweet bonus of the new rink—I played in the first women's hockey game at Watson Arena."
Now a junior, Lozzi feels that she has grown as a player with help from both her coaches and her teammates.
"I've grown in a hockey sense," she said, "but also have found a group of friends from the team that I will stay close with after I graduate. It's always fun to start a new year facing challenges and then come together and create lasting memories."
After college, Lozzi would like to stay involved with hockey. She works with summer hockey camps, hopes to stay involved with them down the line, and has thought about coaching.
"I'm drawn to the sport," she said, "because I have so much fun playing it, and have gotten really close with my teammates. I'm still friends with a lot of my teammates from years ago, and, here at Bowdoin, the girls on the team are my best friends."
This season, Lozzi considers her best moment to be the team's win against Amherst after losing to them the night before.
"It had been a goal of ours coming into the season to beat them," she said, "and showing ourselves we could do so gave us a lot of confidence. We proved to ourselves we could stick with a team that's one of the best teams in the nation, not just the conference, and we won that game because we played as a team."
Lozzi admits that the team has a tough weekend ahead, but thinks that the team's best play against Middlebury is yet to come.
"We lost both games to Middlebury earlier this year," she said, "and gave up a 2-0 lead in the second game. We haven't played our best against them, but if we stay disciplined and use the whole ice, I think we definitely have a good chance of winning. We want to go to the finals and play for the title, but both semifinals should be pretty tight games."
"We're going to have to have a really good game, with everyone trying their hardest for all the line shifts," she added.
She also noted that "good team play will be key," particularly with Kim Tess-Wanat '13 missing due to injury.
Bowdoin lost in its semifinal matchup again Amherst last year, and two years ago lost in the quarterfinals to Colby. The Polar Bears won their last conference championship in 2004.