Photo courtesy Quinnipiac Athletics
By: Sierra Goodwill
The Quinnipiac women’s ice hockey team started off the 2016-2017 season with a 5-4 victory over the Maine Black Bears. In its season opener on Friday night in Hamden, Quinnipiac’s win came with its fair share of ups and downs.
First-game jitters seemed to be absent for the Bobcats, who held a 2-0 lead just two and a half minutes into the game. Sophomore Randi Marcon started things off as she scored on the doorstep of Maine’s goaltender Maria Fujimagari. Just 39 seconds later, T.T. Cianfarano, the leading scorer from the 2015-2016 season, deflected Melissa Samoskevich’s shot into the back of the net.
Cianfarano says the tip-in wasn’t just luck.
“We work on it a lot in practice, we make sure to get in front of the net and just get rebounds and get tips and it paid off tonight.”
The Bobcat’s offensive streak in the first period was topped off by Melissa Samoskevich and captain Emma Woods, who scored on a power play. Quinnipiac ended the first period with a 4-0 cushion.
But that is where the dominance ended, and momentum shifted.
The second period looked to be more of the same when Cianfarano extended Quinnipiac’s advantage to 5-0 on a power play goal assisted by freshman Kenzie Prater. But that would be the bookend for the Bobcats’ scoring.
The Black Bears finally appeared on the board when Catherine Tufts took advantage with the extra player with about five minutes left in the second period. Maine would go on to score three more unanswered goals in the third period, to claw within one.
Maine had made a lot of changes throughout the course of the game, including a goalie exchange, sending in Carly Jackson for Fujimagari.
But Cianfarano said that was not the problem.
“I don’t think it had an effect on us at all. I think we kind of let off the gas a little bit. We weren’t pressuring as much as we were in the first, we weren’t getting good pucks on good sticks.”
Head coach Cassandra Turner decided to take a timeout with three minutes left in the game when Maine had a tight grasp on the momentum and was within reach.
Turner told her team, “Just take a breath. We’re a great hockey team. We are going to start this game right now from this moment. We have to have a short memory.”
From that moment on, Sydney Rossman only saw one clear shot from the Black Bears. Something the senior goalie and reigning ECAC Goaltender of the Year needed, after struggling in the previous twenty minutes.
“I think that was a different game for Syd. She never really got an opportunity to get her flow. She didn’t get a lot of shots that were good, clean, easy saves,” Turner said. “I think if we can get her feeling better about her first shot as we prepare for tomorrow, I think she’ll be in a really good place.”
Quinnipiac (1-0) returns to High Point Solutions Arena on Saturday at 3 p.m. for its second game of the series versus Maine (1-2).
