Women's Hockey Players Earn Season Honors

It’s tourney time for women’s hockey, and with the end of the regular season also comes a slew of regular-season prizes.

Junior Kate Buesser and freshman Jillian Dempsey are both up for two of ECAC Hockey’s biggest individual accolades.

Buesser, a forward, is a top-three finalist for ECAC Player of the Year after earning a spot on the conference first team last week. The junior has stepped into the void left by the graduation of Sarah Vaillancourt ’08-’09, Jenny Brine ’09, and Sarah Wilson ’09 to lead the team with 38 points on 15 goals and 23 assists.

Buesser is tops in the ECAC with a +26 ranking, and was the conference’s second-leading scorer in league games. She is competing with Dartmouth senior Sarah Parsons and Cornell sophomore Catherine White, both forwards, for the prize.

Dempsey, a center, is one of three candidates for the conference Rookie of the Year prize. She is second on the Crimson with 26 points and is 10th among rookies nationally with 0.86 points per game. Big Red defenseman Laura Fortino and Quinnipiac goaltender Victoria Vigilanti are the other two finalists.

Buesser, Dempsey, and No. 4 Harvard take on No. 6 Clarkson in the ECAC semifinals tomorrow night in Potsdam, N.Y.