Shootouts don’t come often in college hockey. However, the fans in the stands at the High Point Solutions Arena Friday night were treated to free hockey and then some to start off the 2016 Nutmeg Classic with the Merrimack College Warriors defeating the Quinnipiac Bobcats 2-1 in a three-round shootout.
Following a goal by teammate Paige Voight and two shots that didn’t find the back of the net for Quinnipiac, Merrimack’s Mikyla Grant-Mentis started up the second round of the shootout with the puck on her stick and a chance to send the Warriors to the Nutmeg Classic Championship game.
Grant-Mentis rifled one up and over the pad of Quinnipiac goalie Sydney Rossman to win the shootout for Merrimack by a margin of 2-0 and secure the 2-1 victory for the Warriors.
“They competed. They played like they were playing up against a top-ten team and wanted to find a way to try and beat us,” Quinnipiac head coach Cassandra Turner said about Merrimack. “I thought they fought hard from the beginning of the game to the end of the game.”
After a scoreless first period, the Bobcats struck 92 seconds into the second period when Kenzie Lancaster got the scoring started for the Bobcats less than a week after her two-goal performance against Colgate last Saturday.
Lancaster stole the puck from a Merrimack skater at the offensive blue line and skated into the offensive zone, catching the Merrimack goalie Samantha Ridgewell off guard. Lancaster then put one on net striking for her sixth goal of the season and giving Quinnipiac a 1-0 lead with 18:28 to play in the second period.
“It feels great,” Lancaster said about her latest scoring surge. “I love being able to help my team out in that way. I think it is just putting the puck on net and just getting set up in good opportunities.”
With the Bobcats holding a secure lead in the latter half of the third period and both teams battling back and forth, Merrimack’s Voight received a pass from Katelyn Rae and found herself all alone on the other side of the ice. Voight, who scored the first shootout goal for Merrimack, then made a strong move on Rossman and found the back of the net to tie the game at one with 7:47 remaining in the third period.
Neither Quinnipiac nor Merrimack was unable to score in the remainder of the third period, therefore overtime was needed. However, five extra minutes were not enough so the teams then decided game through the shootout.
Both teams will have to wait until the end of the second game of the opening round of the Nutmeg Classic to find out who their opponents will be for tomorrow’s conclusion of the tournament. Merrimack will play the winner of tonight’s contest between Yale and UConn at 6 p.m. in the final, while Quinnipiac will play the loser in the consolation game at 3 p.m.
