The Quinnipiac women’s ice hockey team rallied from a two-goal deficit to beat the Brown Bears, 5-4, in ECAC action on Sunday afternoon in Providence. With the win, the ‘Cats improve to 2-7-0 overall, 1-4-0 in ECAC Hockey League play, while Brown drops to 0-5-0 overall, 0-4-0 in the ECAC.
Quinnipiac was able to use a balanced attack to capture the victory, with five different players scoring.
The scoring began early in the game when Brown’s Hayley Moore slipped a backhander past Quinnipiac goalie Laura Brennan at the 2:27 mark of the first period. Moore scored again at the 8:28 mark of the first, off a pass from Andrea Hunter to make it 2-0, Bears.
Just four minutes later, Brown’s Sasha Van Muyen was called off for a five-minute major and received a game misconduct for boarding to give the Bobcats a power play opportunity of their own. Quinnipiac was able to score and cut the lead in half. After Brown goalie O’Hara Shipe stopped a shot from Janine Duffy, Quinnipiac senior Ashley Jaffray was able to collect the rebound and score to make it 2-1 in favor of Brown.
Brown came right back to take a 3-1 lead thanks to a goal by Elizabeth Denis. Despite outshooting Brown 13-7 in the first period, the Bobcats were in a hole and looked as if they were headed for their fifth straight loss.
Quinnipiac was again able to cut the lead in half late in the second period when sophomore Nicolette Leone weaved through the defense and scored with 38 seconds left in the period. It started when Janine Duffy won a face-off on the left side of the Bears’ zone and passed it to Kallie Flor. Flor found Leone, who was then able to score. Both Duffy and Flor were credited with their second assists of the game. The Bears held a 3-2 lead going into the final period.
Quinnipiac head coach Mike Barrett was impressed with the way his team bounced back during the second frame.
“I think we got rid of that (the struggles in the middle frame) yesterday against Yale. We felt that we played pretty solid 60 minutes yesterday against Yale and we outshot them pretty good. We didn’t get that victory at the end of the day, but we were pleased with our performance. So I think we got rid of the second period woes that we had been experiencing yesterday and we solidified it today.”
The Bobcats tied the score quickly in the third period courtesy of sophomore Hayley McMeekin. She was able to gather the rebound off a shot from Kristin Alcorn and fire it past Shipe. Nine minutes later, sophomore Elyse Cole scored her fourth goal in as many games to give the Bobcats their first lead of the game, 4-3. Kristin Emerick scored an empty-netter at the 18:26 mark.
With 16 seconds left, Brown’s Moore scored a goal to compete the hat trick, but it was too little too late. Quinnipiac held on to win 5-4.
Brennan had 10 saves while Brown’s Shipe had 35. Leone and Moore both had seven shots for their respective teams. The Bobcats outshot Brown 40-14.
The Bobcats will return home next weekend to face RPI on Friday at 7 p.m. and Union on Saturday at 4 p.m.
When asked about the upcoming games next weekend, Alcorn knows the team has to come up big.
“We definitely need the four points next weekend,” she said. “I think tonight we definitely capitalized on our opportunities and we need to look to do that next weekend as well. We just need to keep getting shots on the net and continue to play (our game).”
