One day after upsetting the fifth-ranked Clarkson Golden Knights, the Quinnipiac Bobcats added another impressive top-ten victory, taking down the St. Lawrence Saints 3-1 in come-from-behind fashion.
The Bobcats came out buzzing early putting up 22 shot attempts and having a few chances early in the game. The Saints fought back later in the first and forced graduate goaltender Kaley Doyle to make some key saves to keep the game scoreless.
Just 30 seconds into a Quinnipiac powerplay, a blocked shot by St. Lawrence defenseman Katina Duscio sent the puck into the Bobcats’ zone, forcing Kendall Cooper to hook Duscio to prevent a breakaway, and awarding Ducio a penalty shot.
Duscio went in on goal, holding onto the puck looking for the right shot, and was quickly denied by the left pad of Doyle, erasing any threat of danger for Quinnipiac.
The Bobcats started the second period on the powerplay that saw first year defenseman Ainsley D’Ottavio ring the post, almost giving Quinnipiac the lead. However, this would be the biggest chance for the Bobcats of the period as they were on their heels towards the end of the second. Quinnipiac managed to post only one shot on goal to the St. Lawrence’s five.
“Winning is hard, like I said, and it’s almost like we wanted it to be easy in the second period,” said Bobcats head coach Cass Turner after the game.
Things would get more difficult for the Bobcats midway through the third period as a first-year Saints forward walked into the zone and placed a shot high over the blocker of Doyle to make it a 1-0 game.
However, after a Saints penalty, first-year defenseman Makayla Watson evened the game at one. Watson received a pass from junior forward Maya Labad and shot the puck through heavy traffic in front of the net to beat junior goaltender Emma-Sofie Nordström.
The Bobcats would strike again on the powerplay, this time for the lead, as junior forward Emerson Jarvis picked up her second of three assists on the day finding graduate forward Jenna Donnahue alone in front of the net.
Doyle and the Bobcats withstood the final attack from the Saints, clearing the zone quickly and getting fresh players out on the ice.
The exclamation point to an already successful weekend came in the final ten seconds of the game as Jenna Donohue was sprung on a breakaway, with the help of junior forward Emerson Jarvis’s third assist of the day, to pot the game-sealing empty net goal.
Quinnipiac proved they could battle it out against not one, but two, top-ten teams in the country this weekend walking away with two wins and only giving up one goal in 120 minutes of play.
The Bobcats will look to carry this momentum over into next weekend as they go on the road to take on two more conference opponents in Dartmouth and Harvard.
