Quinnipiac women's hockey star Kahlen Lamarche embracing spotlight: 'Bring it on!'
· Yahoo Sports
HAMDEN - In three simple words, Quinnipiac women's hockey senior forward Kahlen Lamarche articulated everything you need to know about her confidence, her competitive nature and how the Bobcats are approaching the pressure of defending the first ECAC title in program history.
"Bring it on!" she said when asked if she likes that opponents will be gunning for her to slow her down after she led the nation in goals last season. She also embraces teams coming harder at the Bobcats, because they are the defending league champs who finished one win away from the Frozen Four.
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"I love being the hunted, so I think it is going to be super cool to be hunted by a lot of teams and for a lot of teams to want to come into our rink and beat us," Lamarche said. "It doesn't add pressure. It adds grit and (the) want to win. I bring that every day anyway, and that just kind of adds to it and makes it more special."
Quinnipiac, ranked No. 6 in the preseason national polls, opens its season this weekend at the University of Maine with games Friday and Saturday, and the Bobcats appear to have one of their strongest teams ever.
Coming off a 29-9-3 season, they return 10 of their top 14 scorers from last season, including Lamarche who scored 42 goals and added 22 assists for 64 points. Her goals and points were both school records and helped earn her first-team All-ECAC and second-team All-America honors.
She also became the first Quinnipiac player to finish in the Top 10 in voting for the Patty Kazmaier Award given annually to the top women's player nationally.
Last season as a junior, Kahlen Lamarche set the Quinnipiac women's hockey records for both goals in a season with 42 and total points in a season with 64. (Quinnipiac Athletics)"Kahlen is one of the most competitive people that I have coached," Turner said. "She wants to win, and she has allowed that to feed into everything in terms of her development as an athlete. She is not afraid to work on what is hard."
Lamarche scored 30 points or more in each of her first three seasons with the Bobcats, but last season she dramatically improved from 14 goals and 19 assists for 33 points as a sophomore by tripling her goals and nearly doubling her point total.
"In her time at Quinnipiac, she has really leaned into the things that she needs to be better at, which helped her to be in the place she was last year scoring 42 goals," Turner said. "She is fit. She is committed to the defensive side of her game. Her shot has always been elite, but she has been even more precise and accurate in how she is shooting the puck.
"She is definitely a very unique and special athlete."
Lamarche said the dramatic increase in goals last season can be attributed to being part of a special team that fosters development and encourages players to make the most of their abilities.
During her 11 seasons as head coach of the Quinnipiac women's hockey team, Cassandra Turner has led the Bobcats to 241 wins, 5 NCAA Tournament appearances and last season's ECAC championship. (Quinnipiac Athletics)"It's the confidence that my team gave me," Lamarche said. "You come to the rink, and you have that support system from the coaching staff and the girls on the team. You are able to be yourself, and when you can be yourself, it is so easy to go play the game you love and show up at the rink and love what you do every day.
"That was one of the biggest switches was I felt comfortable being myself and playing my game. The coaching staff allowed me to be the player I knew I could be. They believed in me, and it just kind of happened."
Despite leading the nation in goals, she said she was far from perfect and has room for growth to have a more spectacular season. She has been working on her shot and growing into more of a leadership role as one of the team's alternate captains.
She is constantly striving to be a better, well-rounded player.
"I like being a gritty person," Lamarche said. "I am definitely more of a finisher around the net, but if I need to be I will go be gritty with someone in the corner. I obviously love some dirty goals, but I also love the pretty goals. I would say I am a little bit of everything."
This year's very deep Quinnipiac team adds a little bit of everything around her starting with great talent at goaltender. Felicia Frank returns after a spectacular sophomore season in which she set the school single-season record for saves with 1,035, posted a 1.56 goals-against average with a .942 save percentage and was named the ECAC Goalie of the Year.
She is sidelined by injury to start the season, but during the team's 3-2 exhibition game win over No. 7 ranked UConn, sophomore Casey Clausen played very well.
Turner said she is also very pleased with the team's defensive corps that features juniors Makayla Watson (captain), Ella Sennick and Aynsley D'Ottavio. The unit is experienced overall with no defenseman under the age of 20.
Quinnipiac women's hockey junior captain Makayla Watson was named to the ECAC All-Tournament team for the champion Bobcats. (Quinnipiac Athletics)Turner is also impressed with how well some of the team's veteran forwards have looked. She has seen tremendous growth in Avery Bairos since the end of last season and believes Ella Johnson is playing much more confidently after spending the summer in USA Hockey camp.
She also expects Alex Law and Bryn Prier to make the team more dynamic and believes that all nine of the Bobcats' newcomers (6 freshmen, 3 transfers) can make an impact.
The team is also uniquely motivated. The Bobcats now feel like they are being hunted by conference opponents while at the same time Quinnipiac is trying to reach the next level of success to compete with the sport's blue bloods.
"We were one win away from the Frozen Four last year, and that obviously leaves and impact on you," Watson said. "We want to do whatever we can to make it to the Frozen Four this year. Last year was a great steppingstone, and we have a bunch of returning players that all have that experience.
"We are lucky to have such a strong returning group, and all our new players have all bought in already, too, so we just need to dial into our identity as a team."
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