For the first time, the NCAA women’s hockey championship field has been expanded to 11 teams. Four of the teams are from New England — Northeastern, Quinnipiac, Yale and Harvard.
Games will begin Thursday, with the Frozen Four scheduled for March 18-20 at Penn State.
Can Northeastern (30-4-2) break through and win its first national title? The Huskies came close last year, advancing to the championship game before falling to Wisconsin, 2-1, during a thriller in Erie, Pa.
NU will host the Wisconsin-Clarkson winner on Saturday at 1 p.m. A win would send Dave Flint’s team to the Frozen Four.
In first-round games Thursday, Quinnipiac (25-9-3) will battle Syracuse (15-10-6) in Columbus, Ohio for the right to play top-seeded Ohio State, and Harvard (22-9-1) will face Minnesota-Duluth (24-11-1) in Minneapolis for the opportunity to meet the University of Minnesota.
Like Northeastern, Yale (25-8-1) is one win from the Frozen Four. The Bulldogs will clash with Colgate (30-7-1) in Hamilton, N.Y., on Saturday.
Ohio State is the only team in the field that doesn’t feature a player from New England. Harvard leads the way with nine New England players.
Here are seven players with local roots to watch.
Skylar Fontaine, Northeastern
A graduate student from East Greenwich, R.I., Fontaine is the second-highest scoring defenseman in the nation.
Fontaine is a threat to join the rush at any time. She has 7-41-48 totals this season, her 41 assists an NCAA high. Overall, she’s 14th in the nation in scoring and she has four game-winning goals.
Fontaine has averaged nearly a point over her five-year career. She’ll enter the NCAA Tournament with 170 points in 176 games. She is one of 10 finalists for the Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award, given to the nation’s top player.
Maureen Murphy, Northeastern
No Division 1 player has scored more goals than Murphy, a senior from Buffalo, N.Y., who played her first three seasons at Providence College.
Murphy is tied for the national lead in goals with 29 with Minnesota’s Taylor Heise. Overall, she has a 29-25-54 line for the Huskies, the third seed in the tournament. Her 13 power-play goals easily lead the country.
Murphy, who has four game-winning goals this season, has produced 84 goals and 154 points in 135 career games.
Darryl Watts, Wisconsin
Watts is also a Kazmaier Award finalist. A graduate forward, local fans remember her first two seasons of college when she starred at Boston College.
She is tied for fourth in the nation in scoring with a 27-29-56 line and leads high-scoring Wisconsin in points.
Watts, who has played the last three seasons at Wisconsin, has an eye-popping 296 career points and 135 goals in her career.
Casey O’Brien, Wisconsin
O’Brien is second on Wisconsin’s scoring list, behind only Watts. She has scored 26 goals and added 28 assists for 54 points.
A finalist for the Kazmaier Award, the native of Milton, Mass., is tied for seventh in the NCAA in points. She has made a huge jump from her freshman season, when she netted 10 points for the national champions.
She played her freshman season of high school at Noble and Greenough School.
Caitrin Lonergan, Clarkson
Lonergan, a graduate student from Roslindale, Mass., did what she’s done her entire career: She has filled plenty of nets this winter.
She led the Golden Knights in scoring with a 17-30-47 line. Her 47 points tie her for 15th in the country. Lonergan tallied 147 points over three seasons at Boston College before transferring to Clarkson.
A former star at Noble and Greenough School, Lonergan has registered 214 points during her college career.
Becca Gilmore, Harvard
Gilmore has scored five power-play goals and five game-winning goals during a terrific senior campaign.
A forward who grew up in Wayland, Mass., Gilmore led Harvard with a 19-26-45 scoring line in 32 games. Gilmore also has consistently shown a knack of scoring important goals. She helped lead the Crimson to their first NCAA tourney appearance since 2016.
Gilmore was an outstanding player during her Noble and Greenough School days.
Charlotte Welch, Yale
A product of Phillips Andover, Welch is a major reason Yale qualified for the NCAA tournament for the first time.
Welch has collected a 13-25-38 line, third best on the team. A junior forward from Winchester, Mass., Welch has compiled 88 points in 92 career games.
This season has been a special one for Welch, who has netted five power-play goals and two game-winning goals.
