Women's Hockey 4, Maine 1: Friars Improve To 6-1-1 On The Road

Report based on CSTV Gametracker

 

Orono, Maine- On the heels of her team killing a carry-over penalty, one that may have otherwise invited the host Maine Black Bears to kindle an epic comeback, Friars’ two-way connoisseur Erin Normore improvised a dazzling, silent soliloquy to set the tone for yesterday’s third period.

 

Implanted at the center of a line with freshman Kate Bacon and equally crafty classmate Mari Pehkonen for even strength play, Normore spotted two consecutive shots on net before drawing a body-checking minor on Kaitlyn Zeek right at the 2:00 mark. From there, upon being reassigned to patrol the points with Brittany Simpson for the power play, she carried right along with another three lashes at goaltender Genevieve Turgeon (27 saves).

 

Nothing of that singlehanded rubber blizzard did anything to alter the scoreboard. But, off a draw forced by Turgeon when she closed down Normore’s fifth shot, the PC’s alternate captain turned things over to her superior C-bearer Simpson, who nimbly leveled the conversion at 2:53, augmenting the lead to 3-1.

 

From there, the Friars took a reasonably comfy ride to their second 4-1 knockoff at Alfond Arena in as many days. They thus swept their two-night visit to, and entire regular season series, with the Black Bears and can walk into their 23-day December deceleration with the notion that they are unbeaten (6-0-1) in seven of eight away games this season, the exception being their first road trip to Northeastern in mid-October.

 

Their incomprehensible command of hostile ice houses hit a climax yesterday, as was best reflected in goaltender Genevieve Lacasse’s unusually light workload of 11 total shots faced. Lacasse only needed to handle one stab –from Dawn Sullivan- in the early half of a scoreless first period, and then assumed an in-depth spectator role as her teammates eventually came to make their own goal count exceed the Black Bears’ collection of shots late in the second.

 

During that agonizing interval of inactivity, the Maine offense saw all of its ten sparsely distributed attempts blocked or telepathically guided wide of the cage.

 

To their credit, the Black Bears similarly filtered a majority of what the Friars discharged, forcing Turgeon to confront a personally shallow 21 shots before the 40-minute buzzer. But PC simply mollified Maine to a breakable state and finally broke through on their fourteenth registered try at the 8:19 mark, top gun Laura Veharanta making good of a feed from Ashley Cottrell.

 

Pam McDevitt, rotated back into the active depth chart after taking Friday off in favor of Stephanie Morris and Lauren Covell, collaborated with defender Jennifer Friedman at 15:32, to set up fourth-line associate Jean O’Neill’s backdoor conversion, rounding out the protracted tempest of 17 unanswered shots with a slightly more assertive 2-0 edge.

 

However, the frostbitten Lacasse sustained a reflective dent when Maine finally refurbished its stick rack moments after Gauthier’s goal when PC defender Amber Yung was flagged for holding at 17:04. In a matter of 24 seconds, the Bears’ pleasantly fruitful power play brigade splashed the team’s SOG drought on a lashing by Lexi Hoffmeyer, then cut the deficit to 2-1 courtesy Jenna Ouellette on the rebound.

 

But Maine’s twigs went numb once more to commence the closing frame, not to resuscitate until after the halfway mark, when they laid out three power play shots and two more immediately after Leigh Riley’s release from a two-minute body-checking sentence.

 

The Friars would cement the 4-1 tally through Arianna Rigano’s quick empty netter with 1:16 to spare, a mere four seconds after Turgeon had vacated her crease to make space for the desperate six-pack attack.

 

Al Daniel can be reached at hockeyscribe@hotmail.com

 

This article originally appeared in the Friartown Free Press

Women's Hockey 4, Maine 1: Friars Clear Early Bump, Pin Black Bears

Report based on Gametracker

Orono, Maine- Thriving on a newfangled 3-1 edge near the dusk of the second period, the patient Friars finally afforded themselves a chance to exploit the Maine Black Bears’ feeble penalty kill.

 

With 5:34 remaining in the stanza, Jordan Colliton took her team’s first whistle of the night for holding and PC, which had already run up a 12-4 edge in the way of registered shots since coming onto a new sheet, peppered goaltender Genevieve Turgeon (31 saves) with four more until Colliton’s jailbreak.

 

Turgeon later withstood another three stabs while teammate Jenna Ouelette served a two-minute sentence for body-checking that carried over to the third. But when the Bears hiccupped once more at 3:40 –through another hitting infraction with Jennie Gallo held liable- the Friars’ strike force swiftly delivered the dagger.

 

Within a mere twenty seconds of the next face-off, Laura Veharanta and captain Brittany Simpson had collaborated to set up Mari Pehkonen for her first intercollegiate tally in a month, cementing a 4-1 victory at Alfond Arena that took a considerably short two hours and one minute to complete.

 

Nagged by a moderate bout of mononucleosis since she returned to campus from the Four Nations Cup in early November, Pehkonen had left her appearance of game time readiness up in the air during the practice week. But she would take a chance on donning the Friar attire for first time in five weeks, link up on the first line with Erin Normore and Kate Bacon, and connect on her lone shot of the evening.

 

Symbolically, Pehkonen seemed to zap the last of her not-too-distant illness memories whilst making the Black Bears forget a time, from about two periods prior, where they were sprinkling hints of pure command on last night’s scoresheet.

 

For the better part of the opening frame, the puck switched possessive teams in pigskin-length intervals. After Jean O’Neill spotted a fleeting one-shot deal for the Friars on her first shift of the game, Genevieve Lacasse (27 saves) got her gamely torture test in the form of about one-and-one-half of a near-continuous penalty kill.

 

Over the Friar bench’s too-many-players infraction, called at 4:09, and Kate Bacon’s tripping citation at 6:30, Maine’s power play, tops in the league to recompense their cellar-dwelling PK, a cumulative nine unanswered power play shots at Lacasse in a matter of three minutes. The crease custodian finally bent on that ninth lashing at 7:18 when Vanessa Vani, Maine’s top point-getter and solitary skating senior, converted a feed from winger Jennie Gallo.

 

Their wake-up call in clear and their discipline back intact, Providence proceeded to pay a lengthy return visit to the Black Bears’ estate, rapidly wrinkling the 10-1 shooting gallery deficit to 10-7 while Turgeon forced frequent whistles.

 

The Friars did nothing more than subtly soften Turgeon up for the moment. But when they rushed in again with just over five minutes till intermission, they punched in an equalizer courtesy Jackie Duncan and the aid of Colleen Martin –who heaved an uncharacteristic six shots of her own.

 

From there on in, every new entry within the scoresheet smiled upon PC. Veharanta, who has suddenly been more given to playmaking of late with assists on two of Alyse Ruff’s clutch goals and another pair of helpers last night, tallied for the first time in five outings at 0:28 of the second, granting the Friars a first time 2-1 edge.

 

Twelve minutes later, centerpiece Ashley Cottrell deviated her normal role of playmaking to accept Veharanta’s export and stash away her second goal of the season to enhance that lead to 3-1.

 

Veharanta thus charged up a breakthrough first three-point outing in her booming young college career and bulked up her team-leading scoring transcript to 11-6-17 over 16 games. And by carrying out the deciding strike singlehandedly, she knotted herself with Ruff with three game clinchers apiece on the season.

 

Al Daniel can be reached at hockeyscribe@hotmail.com

 

This article originally appeared in the Friartown Free Press

Women's Hockey Log: Mayor's Cup-Winning Friars Carry Bear Hunt On To Orono

By sheer serendipity, the puck prophets foresee the Friars’ chance to epitomize their new affinity for defensive nail-biters in this weekend’s two-night stay in Maine.

 

Over the three preceding weekends, Providence has run up a 2-1-1 log and mirrored that near-parity with a cumulative GF-GA discrepancy of 5-5. Meanwhile, from the time this year’s senior class broke in their first sets of collegiate blades, the Friars have drawn a .500 point-plucking rate concomitant with a 6-6 aggregate score in visits to Alfond Arena.

 

Now on the heels of a 1-0 nipping of Brown, which splashed a minor drought from Ws at Meehan Auditorium and nudged them back into the black overall (7-6-2), and bearing a similarly intermediate Hockey East record of 3-2-1, the Friars are yearning for a booming breakout before Christmas break.

 

“It’s very important,” stressed head coach Bob Deraney. “First of all, it’s a chance to sweep a (season) series,” noting the favorable 4-2 decision his team picked up in Maine’s lone trip to Schneider Arena on October 26.

 

Hardly a cinch, that will be. Every last on-ice constituent involved in this series, which kicks off tonight with a 7:00 opening draw, knows no drill beyond drawing a knot when these parties lock twigs on the Black Bears’ Alfond pond.

 

Their perennially plebeian status aside, the gritty Black Bears have mustered a tie in each of the Friars last four drop-ins at Alfond Arena, spaced over the full breadth of the past three seasons. PC’s half-full winless/undefeated streak in Orono dates back roughly four months longer than the program’s tantalizing fast from Hockey East championships, when they scraped out a set of 3-2 and 4-2 triumphs in November 2004.

 

Size all that up with the teams’ last four tangles on the Divine Campus, all of which the Friars have wrested by a collective tally of 18-6.

 

It’s not all specific to Providence, though. Maine enters this weekend empty on the road (0-8) but respectably level at home (3-3-1). Minus a 7-3 lashing via North Dakota in the first weekend of October and 7-1 submission to New Hampshire three weeks to date, the Bears have kept their home scores to a rate of minus-2 or better.

 

“They’re a much different team in their own building,” Deraney acknowledged. “They beat Boston College up there two weeks ago (5-3 on November 16). So it just shows that we’ll be playing a tough team. But at the same time, it’s going to make us tougher and I like our mindset. I like how tough we are, and how tough we are mentally.”

 

Nine of the Friars’ last eleven ventures have been decided by two goals or less. And lately they’ve appeared to duplicate the daredevil habits of these Black Bears by authorizing an overload of opposing shots at their net.

 

The difference: Genevieve Lacasse, unlike Genevieve Turgeon –whom she will likely confront in the cages tonight- has not made a habit of defaulting and relinquishing the game in the shadow of the buzzer. Tonight’s principal talking point, therefore, should be PC’s ambition to exploit that distinction in an OK Corral-like gathering and to buck the tying-Maine trend whilst prolonging the exhilaration trend.

 

“We find ways to win games,” said Deraney. “That’s what great hockey teams do. They find ways to win games, whether it’s 1-0 or 5-4. And the fact that we feel we can come from behind, or feel comfortable with a one-goal lead or when we’re down by a goal, those are all valuable things we need to draw on.”

 

Quick Feeds: Among all eight Hockey East tenants, Maine currently tops the chart in overall power play proficiency, converting at a 20.5% rate. But they are inversely inept on the PK, currently boasting a dead-last 74.1% in that category. A cumulative threesome of shorthanded goals on the opposition’s part doesn’t help the Bears’ cause either. They also rank eighth in the league’s special teams net…Turgeon’s minus-17 rating is the worst on the Black Bears’ stats sheet while her associate goaltender Candace Currier’s plus-6 rating is the program’s best…PC senior Mari Pehkonen, who has combated mononucleosis for the last month, was not skating full throttle or in full gear this practice week, a safe indicator that she will take a few more precautionary nights off this weekend…Part II of this weekend series is slated to commence tomorrow at 2:00.

 

Al Daniel can be reached at hockeyscribe@hotmail.com

 

This article originally appeared in the Friartown Free Press