The Quinnipiac Bobcats women’s ice hockey team controlled the first period against the University of Connecticut, and swarmed the offensive zone for the majority of the period, firing off 27 shots—10 of those reaching UConn goaltender Elaine Chuli.

Only one of those got by Chuli, a blast of a slap shot from Nicole Kosta on the Bobcats’ second power play of the game. The goal, Kosta’s sixth of the season, was all the Bobcats would need to secure a spot in their third straight Nutmeg Classic Championship game (sixth overall in the history of the tournament).

The domination continued into the second period, as the Bobcats outshot the Huskies 16-4. Chuli, who went on to stop 32 of the 33 shots she faced from the Bobcats, came up with some big saves for the Huskies to keep her team within one. Kosta also rang the post bidding for her second goal of the night, in the middle period.

In the third period, the Bobcats ran into penalty trouble. While on a four-minute power play due to two penalties taken by UConn’s Leah Buress, the Bobcats took a penalty of their own with an interference call to Emma Woods. After killing that off and returning to the power play, Melissa Samoskevich took a tripping penalty. UConn killed off the remainder of Buress’ penalty and gave the Huskies a power play of their own.

Then the Bobcats had some miscommunication on a line change, resulting in a too many players on the ice penalty. The Huskies had a two-player advantage for about a minute and a half, but the Bobcats killed off both penalties. Nicole Connery, who was serving the bench minor, never left the penalty box due to more miscommunication, and the Bobcats were once again called for too many players on the ice.

The Bobcats’ penalty kill, combined with some key saves from goaltender Sydney Rossman, came up strong again, and prevented the Huskies from scoring. “The bench was really, really positive,” Quinnipiac head coach Cassandra Turner said. “I think it could have gone in a different direction, could have been negative.”

The Bobcats held on for the 1-0 win. Rossman made 16 saves for her third consecutive shutout. Her shutout streak time is now up to 203:47, the third longest streak in program history, per Quinnipiac Athletics. Rossman is also tied with Clarkson’s Shea Tiley for the third most shutouts in the nation this season with five.

Turner was happy with her defense, which was without senior captain Cydney Roesler. “I was really proud of our defense and I thought Shannon [Cherpak] played some really great minutes for us today…to see her step up and see some of the other [defensemen] step up, I thought they were solid back there and that’s exactly what we want and expect from them,” she said.

Quinnipiac has a chance to win its third consecutive Nutmeg Classic Championship (fifth overall) on Saturday against the only team it has fallen to this season—Yale.

“We played a good game against [Yale] the last time we played them, there’s just a couple details defensively and a few things in our [penalty kill] we’ll look to clean up a little bit but we out-chanced them,” Turner said. “Our kids want a championship. They’re hungry for it, they want it, and they’re certainly not happy with our result against Yale the last time we played here, so I know that’s going to be in the front of their minds and I’m sure we’ll come our hard tomorrow.”

The No. 5 Bobcats take on their in-state and conference rival Bulldogs for the third time this season in the non-conference Nutmeg Classic Championship game at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday.