Winners of seven of its last eight games, the Clarkson University Women’s Hockey team will look to continue its late season surge into the postseason as the Golden Knights open up the ECAC Hockey playoffs by hosting Quinnipiac. The Knights, guided by fourth-year co-head coaches Matt and Shannon Desrosiers, and assistant coach Matt Kelly, will battle the Bobcats in a best-of-three-game quarterfinal series at Cheel Arena this weekend. Friday's game is a 7:00 p.m. faceoff and Saturday's contest is slated for a 4:00 p.m. start. If necessary, the two ECAC rivals will play on Sunday at 4:00 p.m. to determine who will move on to the semifinal round.

ECAC Women's Hockey Quarterfinal Pairings

Led by senior captain Katelyn Ptolemy (Dinsmore, SASK) and senior assistant captain Danielle Boudreau (Whitby, ONT), Clarkson is the third seed in the eight-team tournament with a 15-5-2 ECAC Hockey mark. The Knights, who have reached the 20-win mark for the fourth time in the program’s nine-year history, stand at 21-8-5 overall.

Clarkson clinched a home-ice ECAC playoff berth for the second time in the last three years with a split in central New York to close out the regular season. The Green and Gold took third-ranked Cornell to the limit on Friday at Lynah Rink in Ithaca before falling in overtime 2-1. On Saturday, the Knights earned a hard-fought 1-0 victory over Colgate at Starr Rink in Hamilton.

Playing all but 48 minutes in the Clarkson goal this season, sophomore Erica Howe (Ottawa, ONT) has put up all-star numbers and backbones the Knights’ stingy defensive effort which is ranked fifth in the nation, allowing only 1.74 goals per game. Howe boasts a .928 save percentage, a1.72 goals against average and is tied for second in the nation in shutouts with seven. She made 19 saves in the whitewash over Colgate on Saturday. Howe backstops the nation’s number-one ranked penalty-killing unit (127-143, 88.8%). Howe has been named a finalist for ECAC Goaltender of the Year.

Sophomore Carly Mercer (Exeter, ONT) is just the fourth player in Golden Knights' history to reach 40 points in a season with 14 goals and 26 assists through 34 games. She is just two assists away and five points shy from breaking Clarkson’s single-season records in those categories. Clarkson’s leading goal scorer, sophomore Jamie Lee Rattray (Kanata, ONT) has tallied 18 goals and 35 points through 30 games. Rattray was named a nominee for the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award, which is annually bestowed upon the top player in NCAA Division I Women's Hockey.

Senior Juana Baribeau (Amos, QUE) follows with 27 points (16-11) and has amassed 62 goals and 56 assists through 145 career games. She is six goals shy of becoming Clarkson’s all-time leading goal scorer. Junior Danielle Skirrow (Trenton, ONT) also posts 27 points and 16 goals, including a team-high 10 power-play markers and five game-winners. Powering the Knights offensively from the blueline, junior defenseman Hailey Wood (Lethbridge, ALB) has tallied 24 points (3-21).

Quinnipiac, guided by former Clarkson coach Rick Seeley, is seeded sixth in the postseason with a 12-8-2 league record. The Bobcats own a 17-14-2 overall record. Quinnipiac snapped a five-game losing skid with a sweep at home over the weekend, defeating Union (6-2) and Rensselaer (5-1). Quinnipiac is 9-7 on the road.

Clarkson has won three straight over Quinnipiac and leads the all-time series 13-3-2. The Knights swept the Bobcats during the regular season, winning 3-0 in Potsdam in early November, and 3-2 in Hamden, CT on February 11.