What's new
By:
USCHO Fan Forum

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • The USCHO Fan Forum has migrated to a new plaform, xenForo. Most of the function of the forum should work in familiar ways. Please note that you can switch between light and dark modes by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right of the main menu bar. We are hoping that this new platform will prove to be faster and more reliable. Please feel free to explore its features.

Colgate 2025-26

The goaltending situation remains shaky. Neither Walker nor Davis seems ready to take on the #1 role. To be fair, the team as a whole looks fragile when it comes to confidence. Yesterday, with the Raiders up 3–0 and Yale on the ropes, a reckless play by Walker led to Yale’s first goal. The team looked completely disorganized afterward, even though they still held a two-goal lead and had a five-minute power play.

On defense, although the season is still young, I expected a lot more. Borgiel hasn’t returned to her 2024 form. Pickering remains as puzzling as ever. Spring seems to have hit her ceiling. Svejkovsky is seriously lacking in speed. Sawyer is slowly gaining experience. On the bright side, Senecal is playing excellent hockey for a freshman. As for Sambrano, it’s a complete mystery—could she be injured?

Up front, things appear to be trending in the right direction. Pais continues to get the job done, even if she was a bit less dominant this weekend. Biederman and Aubin seem to be finding their rhythm offensively. In fact, Biederman and Beauchamp showed some nice chemistry last weekend—maybe the start of something promising. I’m a bit puzzled by Decosse’s decision to pair Aubin with Roger. Sarah brings energy and can be very effective defensively with her forecheck, but she’s not an offensive forward. Aubin, who’s a solid playmaker, ends up limited in her options. Aside from the power play, #23 had just one shift with #44 this weekend—and it resulted in Emma’s only goal of the weekend. Looking closer, Aubin has been involved in 6 of Pais’s 9 goals so far this season. I’d love to see a line with Pais, Aubin, and Palumbo. Even though Palumbo isn’t putting up points like she used to, she’ll break through sooner or later.

One of the pleasant surprises: Goofers had two strong games this weekend. She’s solid in the faceoff circle and distributes the puck well to the wings.
 
Agreed, OT. I'm baffled as to why Walker got the start or why she was recruited to begin with. Up 3-0 & 4-2, lose in OT. Colgate has not been in this bad shape for many years. Decosse was handed a painstakingly crafted, golden program and is taking it in the wrong direction. I can't comprehend this as he's been on the bench for 11 years. This feels like another Dakosty era in the making! On paper, his recruits looked talented. FWIW, I predicted Colgate to finish outside the Top 4 in the league. The men's team has similar issues. Harder only has 2 recruiting classes under his belt but still has some splainin' to do. Unlike most sports, hockey is a long, 30+ game season so hate to write anything off yet. Still think Davis may be the better of the two.
 
Proud Canadian, I like your take on both the Offense and Defense. There is definitely talent on Offense which is beginning to jell (Palumbo and Stewart still MIA), but on D, Senecal, Borgiel and Sawyer are it. Hopefully Sambrano gets back as I liked her game last year. Pickering unfortunately has not gotten better in her 3 years in Hamilton and has recently been out of position more than I remember. I'm also terrified whenever either Spring or Svejkovsky are on the ice as they invariably pinch and consistently get beaten. Not easy for coach but he has to face it head on. Cut their playing time in important games or moments.

PC your take on the team's fragility is also right on. For the last 6 years we always had Danielle or Kalty to rely on if we were down or a game was close. Now that safety net is gone so the team has to rely on itself which puts the pressure on everyobe to play lights out instead, probably not a bad thing but not an easy adjustment.

This makes us more of a team this year than we have been for some time as we have no totally reliable stars. Now the coaches and players need to figure out how to make themselves greater than the sum of their parts. They haven't done that yet.

I'm not ready to give up on them yet, but even getting into the ECAC playoffs may be a challenge this year unless things get resolved real soon.
 
The loss this afternoon to RIT had nothing to do with our goalie. We basically seemed to play with no energy or sense of urgency for the last two periods. It's almost like we assumed from our past we would win but were unwilling to really fight for it. We were beaten to almost every puck. The coaches and captains need to put an end to this now or it's going to be a long, long season.
 
Last edited:
Finely, a complete game win/shutout and against our biggest rival who just happened to be undefeated. It doesn't get any better. Everybody played great and the team forecheck and smart defense stood out. Celebrate, eat and get a good night's sleep because they'll be seeking to avenge this embarrassing loss tomorrow at Linah which we cannot let happen! Tonight proved we are the better team.
 
Absolutely! Despite a disappointing performance last Saturday, the team bounced back with pride, resilience, and confidence, going head-to-head with the ECAC’s powerhouse. It was by far their best game of the season in terms of transition play and forechecking. A decisive win—truly a joy to watch!

Credit where it’s due: this victory was no accident. Decosse made the smart call to roll just three lines instead of stubbornly sticking with four. That kept the girls in rhythm and maintained strong momentum throughout.
 
Can only speak for myself but hope Davis gets both starts this w/e in DC. It’s really the only option; anything less is a guaranteed L. Would like another shot at OSU with a more competitive game. One thing’s for sure, our pk has sunk to new lows w/o Danielle, Kalty, & Murphy.
 
After years of some consistent success by ECAC standards, ‘Gate is certainly in the rebuilding stages and is back to mediocrity. When they were considered good, they never made noise in the NCAAs, even as the higher seed. How unfortunate to play OSU 3x in such embarrassing fashion. Let’s face it, the top 4 schools in the USCHO poll are massive institutions with tens of thousands of students. OSU has 61,419 students alone. The disparity is real and the results are always the same. Decosse has been on the Colgate bench for a decade and has gone downhill since he took over the reins. Why does this always happen at Colgate? Hats off to the Buckeyes, what a program.
 
Ugh, we are now deservedly ranked 14th. Clarkson, ranked slightly higher than us, lost to OSU on Friday night 10-0. Unfortunately, there is no team in the ECAC now that that can skate with the top WCHL teams. We never got the MN girls but all the best Canadian girls the top Eastern teams used to attract now want the WCHL or large school teams with new rinks and crowds like PSU or UConn.

Goal tending improving. We should have beaten St. cloud State on Fri but now seem to be unable to score. This weekend against P and Q could be grim as well unless things change asap.
 
Last edited:
IMO PSU needs to jump ship and join the WCHA. They are always a big fish in a little pond with a weak, overinflated schedule. Still think Decosse is questionable. I sensed that Kalty remained loyal by returning her senior year but knew the program was in decline. She and Danielle deserved a FF. When it never materialized, I think Fargo knew the writing was on the wall bc he had done all he could at Colgate. We couldn’t get it with them and Osborne in net, and Decosse isn’t showing he is capable anytime soon. Do like some of the frosh and hope they stick around, but you never know. Hoping for a minimum of .500 hockey and at least one upset in the playoffs when the time comes.
 
Princeton is much improved this year with Wunder playing inspired hockey and a good freshman class, but that was unacceptable.
Gut check time for players and coaches...
 
First time in a while we have no recruits on Canada's U-18 team chosen for the next World Championship. Hope recruiting doesn't start slipping. It does seem more Canadian top talent is now choosing the WCHA over the ECAC than in the past. Other than Princeton I have not been impressed with any ECAC team so far this year but haven't seen Clarkson or St Lawrence yet. Cornell and Q were okay but absolutely beatable and I expect C and StL will be no better. If we get our goalie and defense woes resolved we could challenge P. Unfortunately, that's a long shot unless things radically change.
 
Optimistic for the remainder of the season based on the solid win against a good BC team. A hat trick for Biederman and shutout for Walker!
 
Beiderman continues to impress, with 4 goals and 5 assists over the weekend. Sara Stewart contributed three goals and an assist. And several skaters had multiple assists. Both goalies turned in solid performances. The winter break was perhaps what was needed to turn around a lower than expected season start.
The next two weekends the Women Raiders are away against the top four teams in the league.
 
Absolutely QC! The Raiders look like they’re gearing up for the final stretch of the season with real confidence. The big difference lately is that the goalies are doing outstanding work between the pipes, and it seems to be lifting the whole team. Biederman is on fire right now. We all knew she was going to break out sooner or later, and honestly, I’d much rather see it happen at this point in the year than back in October.

I don’t know if it’s just coincidence, but everything has clicked for Bied since she was put on a line with Aubin and Petford. Early in the season, those two were skating with Pais, who came out of the gate flying. Petford brings experience to the line, and Aubin adds grit while also being a terrific playmaker. That said, Aubin has the downside of her strengths: #23 still has a tendency to take bad penalties. Captain Stewy has also ramped things up since the holiday break. Her hard work has finally started to pay off over the last few games. I’d also like to see more ice time for Beauchamp. She’s been doing great work, but for reasons I don’t quite understand, Decosse is really limiting her minutes.

On the back end, Borgiel has been rock solid, and I really liked what I saw from Spring and Pickering over the weekend.
All in all, the pieces of the puzzle seem to be falling into place—slowly but surely.
 
Outscored 9-2 this weekend. Disagree about Walker; she’s had a decent game or two this season, but otherwise she is a sieve. Her recruitment stats confirm that imo. Was rereading the first several posts of this thread. Nothing wrong with being an optimist, but the overconfidence was naive. Without goaltending, we are nothing. I said that in my first post. Our pk feels like the worst in the nation. I don’t live in the past, but knew those Kalty/Serdachny days were the best we’ll ever see on special teams. Decosse is feeling like the Stan Dakosty of a winning program and turning it upside down. It’s borderline disgraceful given the tutelage he received and his long tenure on a championship bench at Colgate. I’m hoping we finish .500 at minimum, get some great recruits, and that Coach does some soul searching.
 
Bill, a little tough but not far off. After last night’s bad loss to Q (I stopped watching after the 2nd period) it’s obvious the confidence of the team in its goaltending is shot and as a partial result their energy level is just not there. This can’t happen. EB, Borgeil, Aubin, the frosh D, and a few others are the exceptions but many others including most of our upperclass D (as they have been all season) are just coasting around often out of position or just too slow to make plays. This has been a problem from game one yet hasn’t changed at all. We’re now out of the Nat’l poll for the first time in years so I’m worried we may lose some of our best young players in the portal unless this changes. Our upperclass leadership seems nonexistent as numerous upperclass players are having their worst years ever. Coach absolutely has to sit the non-performers even if some are his favorites. That said, this year is probably lost. So our first priority has to be getting a goalie on the portal this off season. We have no goalie committed in the next 3 years and what we had hoped for has failed. Davis could get better but it’s going to take time which we don’t have and Walker though seemingly very athletic, either doesn’t see the puck or have the skill set. It’s on Coach…fix these issues asap or risk continuing this rapid slide into mediocrity!
 
I stand by what I wrote earlier in the day, but credit where credit is due, Brooke Davis was outstanding today and almost single handedly beat a very good Princeton team. That’s what’s so frustrating. She can be great like today and yet let in easy ones on an off night and cost us dearly. I would take good to very good all the time over whatever we have now, but with her, the talent is there, it’s the focus and concentration that’s needed…Keep it up Brooke!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top