Riding its longest winning streak of the season, the Clarkson University Women’s Hockey team takes to the road this weekend to battle traditional ECAC Hockey powers in New England. Guided by fourth-year co-head coaches Matt and Shannon Desrosiers and assistant coach Matt Kelly, the Golden Knights face off at Harvard in Cambridge, MA in a 7:00 p.m. game on Friday night and then travel to Hanover, NH for a Saturday afternoon contest at Dartmouth beginning at 4:00 p.m.

Clarkson, led by senior captain Katelyn Ptolemy (Dinsmore, SASK) and senior assistant captain Danielle Boudreau (Whitby, ONT), own a 7-3-4 overall record and are in a three-way tie for third place in the conference with a 3-2-1 ECAC Hockey mark.

After starting the league campaign at 0-2-1, the Green and Gold have lifted their play and put in strong defensive efforts to win their last three ECAC Hockey games. The Knights have allowed just one goal over the past three games and are coming off back-to-back shutouts at Cheel Arena. Last Friday, Clarkson blanked Quinnipiac 3-0 followed by a 1-0 whitewash of Princeton on Saturday.

Named ECAC Hockey Goaltender of the Week, sophomore Erica Howe (Ottawa, ONT) backstopped the Knights’ stingy defensive efforts with 53 saves in the weekend sweep. She posted 27 stops in the win over Quinnipiac and 26 more in the victory over the Tigers for her fifth career shutout and third this season. Named the league’s Goaltender of the Month for October, Howe posts a .925 save percentage and a 1.82 goals against average playing every second in the Clarkson goal through the first 14 games.

Senior Juana Baribeau (Amos, QUE) led the Knights’ offense in the weekend wins, recording two points (1-1) in the victory over the Bobcats and the game-winning goal against Princeton. Baribeau is closing in on the Century Mark with 97 career points (49-48) through 127 games. She has three goals and three assists this season.

Sophomores Brittany Styner (Calgary, ALB), with her first of the year, and Vanessa Plante (Riviere-du-Loup, QUE), with her second consecutive career goal, also scored in the win over Quinnipiac.

Leading scorer, sophomore Jamie Lee Rattray (Kanata, ONT) sat out the weekend with an injury. She has 16 points, including a team-high 11 assists. Rattray has been selected to Canada’s U-22 National Team, and will represent her country at the 2012 Meco Cup in Fussen, Germany, set to take place January 3-8, 2012. Classmate Carly Mercer (Exeter, ONT) also is scoring in double figures for the Green and Gold with 13 points. All five of Mercer’s goals have come on the power play, tying her for the third most in the country.

Ranked 10th in the national polls, Harvard opened the season with four consecutive road games and owns a 3-1 overall record and is in sixth place in the ECAC Hockey standings with a 3-1 league mark. The Crimson, along with travel partner Dartmouth, have played the least amount of conference games at four. Harvard suffered its first loss of the season when second-ranked Cornell gained a 5-3 win over the Crimson in Ithaca this past Saturday. Harvard shut out Colgate 2-0 in Hamilton, NY on Friday.

Dartmouth, which hosts St. Lawrence on Friday, is coming off strong weekend in Central NY where it picked up four points on the road. The Big Green shocked second-ranked Cornell 5-4 at Lynah Rink on Friday and then shut out Colgate, 2-0, on Saturday at Starr Rink. Dartmouth, which is receiving votes in the national polls, stands at 3-2-1 overall is tied for third in the conference with an unbeaten 3-0-1 league mark.