Junior helps PU women’s hockey earn split of weekend games
By: Justin Feil
Sarah Butsch set herself up for a big junior season.
Last season, she came on strong to finish with a career-high seven goals and seven assists doubling her output from her freshman year to earn the Princeton University women’s ice hockey team’s most improved player award. She’s never been a fast starter, but this year she didn’t feel like she’d lived up to expectations until the New Year.
"I went into the season hoping I’d pick up where I left off but I got off to a disappointing start," said Butsch, who had one goal before the calendar turned. "I realized I wasn’t performing up to my expectations and I was not playing up to my potential at all. I hope to be able to continue to pick it up and make up for all the games I haven’t produced in."
She’s off to quite a start in 2005. Butsch had the Tigers’ lone goal as they tied No. 5 New Hampshire, 1-1, to start the New Year. She didn’t score in Princeton’s 3-2 loss to St. Lawrence on Friday, but scored the game-winner in a 3-0 win over Clarkson on Saturday. Her goals have been big. Two of them are game-winners, and one is the game-tying goal. Only Kim Pearce’s goals have meant more to the Tigers.
"I have not been changing my play a whole lot," Butsch said. "I seem to be in the right place at the right time. We’ve been changing our lines around. Sometimes you click with linemates better than some linemates. That’s one of the major changes.
"Once I’m on a line that I like playing with, it’s difficult to stay on that line," she added. "I push myself to stay on that line. It puts pressure on me to perform well. That’s been the majority of my motivation to stay on a line that I can click really well with. It gets changed up pretty often, so it’s hard. It’s not really consistent."
The Tigers would like to be able to keep some consistency, just like they’d like to be able to expect more consistent scoring from Butsch. The wing is hoping she’s over the slow start with her recent flurry that has enabled Princeton to retain its Top 10 ranking and a 10-5-3 record.
"I think my expectations were definitely higher," Butsch said. "The coaches and I expected me to play a larger role than I’m currently playing. We don’t have superstars on the team this year, so everyone’s role has gotten bigger. There’s no Gretchen Anderson, who scored a lot of our goals for us last year, or a hot shot like that. Expectations have gotten better, but the performance hasn’t."
Butsch said she wanted to get off to a faster start, but she wasn’t able to play as much as she wanted to over the summer. Without a car, the Berlin, Vt. resident had difficulty making her summer league games.
"If I had played on a regular basis, it wouldn’t have taken as long," said Butsch. "It’s difficult in the situation I was in."
Butsch got her hockey career off to an early start in Vermont. With a father and two of three siblings who played in college, she started early on that path. She was playing competitively by age 6. At U-32 High School, she played on the boys’ varsity Division III team. From that background, she joined the Tigers and played in all 31 games, even scoring a power-play goal in the ECAC semifinal.
"I played really consistently after my senior year of high school," Butsch said. "I played with boys. It took me a lot of the season to learn to play with girls. It’s a totally different game. It’s a different style of game. It took me a larger part of the season to adjust to playing with girls."
Butsch still shows some signs of having played the more physical boys’ game. She is second on the Tigers in penalties and penalty minutes. It’s another area that she hopes to improve on in the New Year. Princeton has a number of focal points as it enters its exam break before returning to the ice on the road at Harvard Jan. 28.
"One of the major points is finishing," Butsch said. "We have not been able to score. We had over 30 shots against Clarkson. And we need to work on our power play. It’s not as strong as it should be. We have to cut down our penalty minutes. Me and another girl have been racking them up. The power play and staying out of the penalty box are the major focuses for us."
Princeton is in position to host an ECAC playoff series, but will need to shore up those points to do so. The win over Clarkson sends the Tigers into their exam break in on a better note.
"This past weekend, the first period we came out a little flat against St. Lawrence," Butsch said. "We came out better in the second and third period but didn’t win. We banked on winning at Clarkson. It was a huge win. If we had lost, we would have been disappointed and frustrated.
"It makes it tough to continue the season after nine days of optional practice. And other teams don’t have the same exam schedule. They play through it. We’re always a littler nervous and tentative coming back. It happens to be Harvard and Brown this year, so it will be a huge test. And right now, we have a couple star defensemen out."
Everything points to the Tigers needing someone to boost their play, and Butsch could be the one. Given that so much is riding on her continued strong play and her history of slow starts after layoffs, Butsch is hoping to get to as many optional practices as possible over the break.
"I will take them seriously," she said. "We’re mandated to make five of nine. And we have to continue lifting two to three times a week. I want to stay in shape and try to use it. I want to try to use the time to stay in shape and come out even in better shape. When I take breaks, I lose confidence and get rusty."
In the New Year, Sarah Butsch started to turn her season around. And when the Tigers continue their season at the end of the month, she’s determined to make up for lost production and help the Princeton University women’s ice hockey team finish strong by being the big factor she was expected to be from the start.
"Hopefully this is the start of some burst of points," Butsch said. "I anticipated that what happened last week would be happening in the beginning of the season not four months into it."