Dartmouth Women Lead Tight Bunch

The defending ECAC Champion Big Green of Dartmouth garnered five of the nine first-place votes in the ECAC Preseason Women’s Coaches’ Poll. The Big Green defeated the Crimson of Harvard for the title last season and will try to repeat under new head coach Mark Hudak.

The Crimson, who were the eventual runners-up in the NCAA Tournament, finished second in the voting with two first-place votes, just five points less than Dartmouth.

St. Lawrence earned two first-place votes to finish third in the poll. Princeton finished fourth in the voting while Brown finished fifth.

Yale was voted sixth and Colgate seventh. Cornell picked up eighth place while Vermont finished in ninth. Union will makes its debut at the Division I level this season and was picked to finish 10th.

In the Preseason All-ECAC Teams Harvard and St. Lawrence led the way placing two student-athletes on the list with Angela Ruggiero on defense and Julie Chu at forward for the Crimson while the Saints had Rachel Barrie in goal and Gina Kinsbury at forward. Brown’s Amy McLaughlin was voted on defense and Cherie Piper of Dartmouth earned the last forward position.