Women's Hockey | 12/4/2014 8:02:00 AM

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ROCHESTER, NY - The RIT women's hockey team heads east for a single contest at 7 p.m. on Saturday evening against College Hockey America foe Syracuse. It will be the 10th meeting between the two CHA rivals since the start of the 2012-13 season.

Last time out, the Tigers (7-8-3, 1-4-1 CHA) split a weekend series at ECAC foe Rensselaer, losing 4-1 on Friday and winning 3-0 on Saturday. On Friday, Lindsay Grigg (Oakville, Ontario/Oakville Hornets) scored just two minutes in, bur the Engineers would score four unanswered tallies to defeat RIT. Brooke Stoddart (Elmvale, Ontario/Elmvale) made 23 saves in defeat. On Saturday, Celeste Brown (Great Falls, MT/National Sports Academy) scored a pair of goals, while Jetta Rackleff (Bend, OR/Summit) picked up her first win of the season and second shutout of the month, stopping 20 shots.

Brown now has 27 goals since RIT moved to Division I in 2012, most on the squad. She, along with Mackenzie Stone (Kars, Ontario/South Carleton), lead the team in scoring with 10 points apiece. Nine different players have at least five points. RIT has five shutouts this season and is ninth nationally in scoring defense, allowing just 1.75 goals per game. In net, Rackleff has a 1.71 goals against average and .929 save percentage. 

Syracuse (4-8-7, 3-2-3 CHA) enters Saturday's game looking to snap a two-game losing streak. On Tuesday, the Orange fell to Cornell, 6-2. Freshman Stephanie Grossi leads the team in scoring with 17 points on five goals and 12 assists. Melissa Piacentini has a team-high 10 goals. The Orange have been outscored 63-39 this season. In net, Jenn Gilligan has appeared in 18 games, recording a 4-8-6 record with a 2.90 goals against average and .885 save percentage.

Syracuse leads the all-time series between the two schools, 5-3-1. Eight of the nine previous games ended in a tie or one goal difference, with five going to overtime. RIT went 3-1 against Syracuse last season.  Syracuse enters the weekend tied for second in the CHA standings with nine points, while RIT is sixth with three points. After this weekend, RIT plays just two more regular season non-conference games against North Dakota at the Gene Polisseni Center on Dec. 12-13, both at 3:05 p.m.

Live stats for Saturday's contest are available here. Video is also available.