LENNOXVILLE, Que. - For the first time this season, the Gaiters women's hockey team will play in front of their home crowd. On Saturday evening, the Northeastern Huskies are in town for a showdown at Jane & Eric Molson Arena. Puck drop is scheduled for 5:15 p.m.

The Matchup
Backed by a 10-3-0 record, the Bishop's Gaiters sit atop the latest ACHA Division II rankings. Dominic Desmarais' team has owned the number one ranking since November 7^th, 2018 and have yet to drop a game to an ACHA DII opponent this season. All three of their losses have come against Liberty University's DI squad.

Northeastern (11-2-2) arrives north of the border with a superb record of their own, good enough for the No. 3 ranking. Their only losses have come at the hands of the Gaiters, on November 17^th and 18^th, when Bishop's bested them 5-1 and 7-1 respectively.
Hayley Robitaille (Ottawa, Ont./Sir Wilfred Laurier S.S.) had seven points for the Gaiters that weekend, including five goals in game 1, while Katie Locke (Tiny, Ont./Dr. G.W. Williams S.S.) tallied five points of her own as the pair of freshmen powered their team to victory.

Coach's Corner
"We are very excited for this weekend to play in front of our friends, family, campus and community," said head coach Dominic Desmarais. "We are excited for what should be an unreal home crowd.  Against Northeastern we will need to use our speed, create offense and get in front of the net.  Our main goal is to continue to do what we have been doing all season, we need to continue to play as a collective team."

Last Time Out
Bishop's is coming off a busy weekend in Lynchburg, VA, where they played six times in three days, finishing with a 4-2 record.
They knocked off Liberty University's DII team and the United States Naval Academy twice each but suffered a pair of losses to Liberty's DI team.

Team Leaders
Jessica Belanger (Sherbrooke/) led the Gaiters attack last weekend with 13 points in six games. She now has 20 points on the season, which ties her for second most on the team with Arianne Charette (Ste-Agathe, Que./Winchendon School) and Hayley Robitaille (Ottawa, Ont./Sir Wilfred Laurier S.S.). Katie Locke (Tiny, Ont./Dr. G.W. Williams S.S.) leads the way in that category with seven goals and 15 assists for a total of 22 points.
Maude Russell (Boucherville, Que./Andre Laurendeau) continues her impressive play in net, with a 1.60 goals against average to go along with a .932 save percentage.

Estelle Ip is the Huskies points leader with 23. Erika Dudek has managed the majority of the minutes in goal, registering four shutouts and a 1.52 goals against average in nine games.

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